


Sunflowers and Roses

by eloquent_apollo



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, The angst is not that bad but still tagging it, flowershop au, tattoo artist jeremy, the mob is involved but like dont worry about it man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:02:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29960664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquent_apollo/pseuds/eloquent_apollo
Summary: Jean Moreau only has a month left in San Diego before he has to face Riko Moriyama in court. He has spent the past three months keeping everyone out but the thought of disappearing without a trace has scared him into letting others into his life. More specifically, a certain blond tattoo artist that brings him candy in exchange of flowers. Falling in love so shortly before he is supposed to disappear from San Diego is incredibly stupid, but apparently that doesn’t stop Jean from doing it anyway.
Relationships: Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau, Minor or Background Relationship(s), background Laila/Alvarez, background renison
Comments: 11
Kudos: 8





	1. Lotus

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta's for fixing up this monster of a fic. Sorry Imke for not knowing when to break up a paragraph and giving you a monster that covers the entire screen. One day I will learn, but until then...
> 
> Anyway this fic was written for the reverse big bang for Kat (kitkatartstuff on tumblr/insta) they're an incredibly talented artist and I had a lot of fun writing this fic for u! I hope you'll like it too <3

**Lotus** \ _low•tuhs_ \ rebirth

* * *

A strange series of events lead Jean to where he is today; safe from the mafia (or as safe as one could be, when you ratted out an entire crime syndicate to the FBI), in San Diego, an unfamiliar city that he has never been to, in southern California with his own flower shop. The shop is small, but the windows are big and let in enough natural light for Jean to make up for all those years he spent locked away in a basement in west Virginia. He tries not to think too much about his past. The memories wear him down if he lets them occupy his mind for too long. 

Jean picked this city for a reason. It’s huge, he is completely anonymous out here. When he walks down the streets on his way to work, he passes countless of nameless faces he will never see again. It’s comforting to know that Jean is a nobody to those he passes as well, no more than a single face in a crowd of thousands. The streets of San Diego provide Jean with shelter, they let him hide away from who he used to be and the life that follows him wherever he goes. They also offer him a future, a routine, a route to work he walks every day. They offer him a freedom Jean had always dreamt of having ever since he came to America, ever since he was forced to speak a language foreign to him and to forget his own native tongue. Now the streets also offer him a shop that he can call his own, a shop which he, and only he, holds the keys to. 

They jingle in his hand as he opens the door to the flower shop. The fresh scent of a variety of flowers tells Jean he’s not dreaming. Sometimes, when he has nightmares and he wakes up sweating and screaming, the smell of flowers calms him down. A scent is real, they are irrefutable proof of his small apartment being real. The smell of coffee grounds in the morning, the smell of his cat’s litter box, the smell of flowers on his windowsill. They are all things he didn’t have back in the basement where he lived for years, back when he was someone he never wanted to be. 

He walks past his flowers, checks if any of them need extra care. He checks the bouquets for wilting flowers, and when he finds some he hangs them up in the back to dry. Even in death, flowers are gorgeous. They don’t lose their magic even when they dry. Jean likes it, there is comfort in it. He thinks that might be why he decided to open up a flower shop in the first place, surrounding himself with enough beauty so people wouldn’t see the ugly parts. He doesn’t want anyone to see the ugly black ink that stains his fingertips, the black ink that ruined everything he touched. 

Getting the actual permission to open up a flower shop and convince the agents assigned to him that he could keep it running had proven to be difficult. With an actual income to his disposal, Jean increased his flight risk. More than half of Moriyama's followers still hadn’t been arrested and even Jean knew that the possibility of him returning to his old job was higher than he wanted to admit. It wasn’t because he wanted to go back, but because when faced with the uncertainty of what the next months would bring him, it was most definitely the smarter option. Life with the Moriyamas was harsh but it followed a schedule that was planned to the second, it didn’t leave space for uncertainty. Jean didn’t miss it at all, but returning there would be safer. 

He liked the surprises that San Diego brought him; he liked the freedom, he liked the very few people he allowed himself to associate with. One of them was Renee Walker, the only other person he had hired to work at the flower shop with him when he first started out. A lot of people came and applied for a job, but Renee stood out. Her calm and polite demeanor was a front that Jean could only barely see through. It was so strong he had almost missed it if it weren’t for the way her eyes had darkened at the sight of the small knife he kept with him for cutting flower stems. 

He never asked her what that look had meant, and she never asked about the scars and the tattoo or the way he jumped when a quiet customer made themselves known in the back of the shop. There was an understanding between them, an understanding of moving on and being better than what they used to be. Their only difference was that Renee had once offered to tell him the story, on a quiet night where Jean had accompanied Renee to her house for a nice dinner after she found out he wasn't able to cook for himself. The Moriyamas had never bothered to teach Jean a set of important life skills, because those skills offered him a sense of freedom and no one wanted Jean to forget where and _who_ he belonged to. 

Jean had declined to hear her past. “I don’t care about who you used to be.”

Jean valued his friendship with Renee, who was his only lifeline in the big city. He didn’t know many other people, didn’t bother to try to meet any new people, even though Renee had tried to introduce him to some of her friends a couple of times. Eventually she got the memo, and didn’t try to invite him to pub nights anymore.

“Morning,” Renee’s voice jars him from his thoughts. 

She is standing a couple feet behind him, her hands folded at the front. She smiles at him, but her eyes betray that she noticed the way he had momentarily slipped away in thoughts. Jean puts down the flowers he had been arranging into a bouquet, and makes his way from behind the counter. There is a bruise forming on Renee’s collar and Jean is reminded of the stories of late night sparring sessions.

“Good morning. Can you finish those orders for today so I can open up?”

Renee nods quietly, taking off her coat as Jean walks past her to the front of the store. People on their way to work pass by, not once turning to look at him as he pushes open the doors to set some flowers outside, obscuring part of the windows, making it harder to see Jean from the streets. It’s only spring and early in the morning. The wind is chilly enough to make Jean shiver. Maybe it’s just because he isn’t used to the outside world yet. Maybe as months turn into years Jean will like the chill from an early spring morning. The thought is so foreign to Jean, the idea that one day he will be free to _enjoy_ things, that one day he will be free from the mafia and to think he will have a future with this store. They aren’t thoughts he should be having, or thoughts he deserves in the first place, so he forces them away. 

It’s spring, the early morning is chilly and Jean is setting flowers outside. It’s much safer to be in the present than it is to dream of the future.

“How is Annie doing?” Renee asks as he steps back inside.

Annie used to be a stray cat who frequently came into the flower shop to beg for food and at first Jean had shooed her away without fail again and again. She was persistent, coming back as soon as Jean had turned his back to her, meowing loudly until he gave her the ham of his sandwich. Stale bread tasted awful, but at least it was quiet inside. Eventually he started buying cat food when he realised she wasn’t going to stop coming in and demanding to be fed, and then one day she followed him as he walked back home. He had let her into his apartment, and she hadn’t left since, seemingly perfectly content with roaming around the small living room and the balcony. He bought a litter box, cat toys and more food and soon he realised it added a sense of structure to his life that made it a lot easier to navigate. Then he found out the bastard was pregnant, and soon he would have a small litter to care for. 

“Good, the vet said she should go into labour in a couple of days.”

Renee smiled slightly as she put a few of the ordered bouquets together. “Do you know how many she’s expecting?”

“5 kittens.” 

He had already promised Renee she could take one of the kittens once they were old enough to leave the nest. He hadn't thought about what to do with the remaining four, or if he was going to keep any of them for himself. He could afford it, but he hadn’t wanted to get a cat in the first place so he wasn’t sure if getting a second was a smart choice. If anything, he could put up a flyer in the store, letting people know he had kittens for sale.

They didn’t talk much aside from that, Jean prefered not to talk much and Renee indulged him in his silence. The only sound between them as Jean swept the floor was that of the radio and the occasional early customer. Jean prefered the quiet, but he didn’t prefer silence. He had discovered that the first night in his new apartment, when the quiet ticking of the clock marked every passing second of Jean’s restlessness. Every passing car outside his window had made him worry he had been found, so the following morning he had gone out and bought three radios. One for in the kitchen, where he could hear it in the living room as well, one for in his bedroom and one for at the flower shop. He didn’t recognise any of the songs playing throughout the day, but the tunes kept his mind occupied. Even now, as he swept the floor and moved plants around, the music passed and Jean found himself lost in the melodies and the methodical movements. It was routine, which was the only thing he allowed himself to cling to from his past. It was routine, but it was _his_ routine. 

“Hello boy,” Mr Martinez says. Mr Martinez is a regular, as much as you can be a regular at a flower shop. He comes by every Sunday to pick up a small bouquet of roses, and everytime without fail, as he hands Jean the money for the flowers he goes on and tells him about his wife. Everytime he tells Jean how the roses are for his wife, how they are her favourite flowers and how she smiles whenever she gets them. It’s sweet and it kind of reminds him of his grandfather; a vague memory of his childhood tugs at the corner of his mind but he is never able to recall it.

“Good morning. The usual?” Jean asks, already heading for the roses.

“Yup,” Mr Martinez responds, following after Jean. 

Jean pulls out a bouquet of roses for him, carefully wrapping them to protect them from the chilly morning before ringing them up on the counter. Mr Martinez pulls out his wallet and hands Jean a five dollar bill. Jean counts his change, but Mr Martinez places a hand over his wrist.

And suddenly he is back in the basement, his wrists pinned down by a shadow, a face he doesn’t recognise. His body aches with pain and Jean can’t tell if it’s real or a distant memory roaring to life. He can only see a pair of wicked eyes in front of him, sharp teeth showing off a wicked grin and Jean is trapped. He can’t think, can’t convince himself that he is anywhere but back in that fucking basement in West Virginia with nothing but—

“Jean,” a voice says. Jean doesn’t recognise it. 

The voice is soft, it doesn’t belong in the basement that’s so, so dark and harsh. It’s soft, it’s light. It makes Jean think of cinnamon rolls, pretty flowers and busy city streets. It’s the voice of a friend, of freedom, of Renee.

“Jean,” she repeats.

Jean blinks and Renee is standing in front of him, Mr Martinez to her side with concern in his eyes. Jean blinks again, forcing the fog from his brain. He’s in San Diego, he’s not hurt, he hasn’t had a bruise or cut in weeks. 

“Renee,” he says. Slow. Deliberate.

He takes the change out of the register, squeezing it tightly in his fists to hide the unsteady shaking. It’s the only thing that betrays his nerves, but with a tight enough grip he can pretend it’s not there.

Mr Matinez and Renee still see it as he drops the change on the counter.

“I’m just…” Jean trails off, never finishing his sentence as he disappears to the back. 

The panic attack follows almost immediately after. He slams back against the door, sliding down to his knees as he gasps for air involuntarily. No matter how hard he tries, it feels like he can’t get enough air in his lungs. His throat aches, his lungs hurt and his breathing becomes more frantic. _I don’t want to go back_ , is all he can think to himself. He never wants to go back there, he _won’t_ go back to them. He’s free here, all he has to do is wait out the trial and keep a low profile and he will have a life to himself. He will have his flower shop, he will have his friends, he will have his freedom. 

The thoughts calm him down and Jean can finally take in a big breath. Keeping a steady pattern proves tricky, but slowly Jean manages. All he has to do is force his attention on the drying flowers hanging in the back. He looks at them, quietly whispering the names to himself.

“Daisy, rose, forget-me-not, lotus, asphodel,” he whispers, until all he can think about is the flowers in the back.

As the flowers dry the colour becomes less vibrant, the red roses fading to a dull numbing shade. A shell of what they used to be. It doesn’t make them ugly, quite the contrary. Even in death, the flowers have a charm to them. Nothing lasts forever, not flowers, not people, not even nightmares. That doesn’t mean that when the good things end, they will turn bad. Just the memory of what they used to be can be beautiful, even if it’s only a memory, a shadow of what it used to be when it was alive. 

Jean hopes that when he dies, he’ll be like the dried bouquets he keeps in the back. A happy memory, a shadow, beautiful but in the past.

He thinks he’ll just be a stain of ugly ink, a smudge of black over a piece of paper, a tear stain on a letter. Something that makes you crumple up the paper and start all over.

Maybe that’s for the best, though.

  
  


-

  
  


Renee makes Jean go home early that day. She picked him up a box of instant coffee, a new flavour to try, during her lunch break. Jean puts it with the other flavours he always promises to try but never does. At the end of the day Jean is too tired to try, and drinking the coffee alone feels a little wrong. He knows deep down that he is allowed to enjoy things, that he can drink coffee on his own, but a sneering voice in the back of his mind still tells him that he doesn’t deserve it. So he leaves the instant coffee in his cabinet, never opening the cabinet except to add more coffee to it. He reaches for the bland coffee brand, putting some powder in his mug and turning on the kettle. It’s as good as any, plus it was also a gift from Renee and therefore when he drinks it, he feels less like he is making Renee waste her money. Adding water to the coffee, he grabs a spoon to stir and walks to the living room to sit on the couch, right next to Annie. She purrs and trudges over, dropping herself in Jean’s lap. When he doesn’t immediately move to pet her, she nips his hand.

“Ow, don’t do that,” he mumbles.

It doesn’t actually hurt, Jean doesn’t know why he said that.

He runs his hand through Annie’s fur, who purrs contently as she snuggles up in his lap again. 

_Mreow_! Annie nips at his hand again when Jean absentmindedly stops petting her. He frowns, but doesn’t tell her off. She just wants his attention, it doesn’t even actually hurt. 

He turns on the radio, but his mind is elsewhere. Nowhere unpleasant, it drifts off less often these days. He’s tired from his panic attack at the shop, he’s tired from working through it, he’s tired. He closes his eyes, just for a little bit.

  
  


-

  
  


The following morning Jean returns to his work like he does everyday. Having a routine is grounding, but it also works to keep suspicion away from him. He has a meeting with his marshall after his work shift and Jean will be send a text with the location an hour before he has to be there. This too is part of his routine, but it’s something he can’t talk about to his friends. The meetings with his marshall are to make sure that Jean isn’t in any danger, but they also provide him with updates of their attempts to find the people that work for the Moriyamas. Every time he has one of those meetings he both dreads and hopes to hear that they have been found. If they are found, Jean is safe, he will be able to go to trial and continue his own life. However if they are found he has to leave this life in San Diego behind. He will never be allowed to speak to Renee ever again, he will never be allowed to go back to his little apartment, he will never be able to set foot in his shop ever again. The thought of leaving all of this behind leaves Jean with an uncomfortable feeling in his chest, something he hasn’t felt in a long time. It’s grief, tugging at his heart and stomach, leaving him sick and with a numb pain. Jean doesn’t want to think about it, he doesn’t want to feel these things, so he forces them deep down where no one will ever be able to find it and forces himself to focus on work.

It’s a slow day at the flower shop and Jean finds himself looking at the clock every 30 minutes, there are little to no customers and the quiet workfloor does nothing to distract him from the meeting in the afternoon. At 11 he calls it quits and goes across the street to the small coffee shop to get lunch.

“Morning Jean,” Nicky says cheerfully.

Nicholas “Nicky” Hemmick is one of the few friends Renee has that Jean has bothered to meet. He’s a cheerful guy and talks a million miles an hour if no one stops him. Jean never tries, the more Nicky talks about his husband in Germany, the less Jean has to tell about himself. He doesn’t have much of a story to tell except for what he and his marshall rehearsed, but he doubts Nicky will take what he tells him and not expect more. 

“Morning. Can I get a latte and a blt-sandwich to go?” 

“Sure!” Nicky flashes him a smile, moving behind the counter to get his order ready. “We made a delicious batch of chocolate muffins. Want me to add some to your order?”

Jean shrugs, which Nicky takes for a yes. He adds 2 muffins to his order, finishes making the coffee, grabs a prepackaged sandwich, and hands him his order. While Nicky rings it up and Jean looks for his wallet, Nicky studies him quietly. Jean can feel his gaze on him, and when he looks up he meets Nicky’s blinding smile. There is something a little off about it, it’s less polite. Jean can’t place what’s off about it, but he can tell that it isn’t something bad. Renee once told him about the concept of a customer smile and Jean decides that this is most definitely not it.

As Jean reaches out to give Nicky money for his order, Nicky opens his mouth and says, “So, you’re single right?” 

“I’m sorry, what?” Jean asks, his hand halting just a few inches from the counter.

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“... Aren’t you married?” Jean asks carefully.

Nicky looks at him for a few seconds, clearly not understanding Jean’s train of thought. Then his eyes widen and he starts to laugh. Nicky has a loud laugh, it draws the attention of a few people in the shop, but they return to their own conversations and Jean feels both seen and ignored. 

“No! Well, yes I am married, but that wasn’t why I asked. I’m trying to set you up with someone. Well, my cousin specifically. He’s a little short and a little mean but….” Nicky trails off, maybe realising that isn’t the best way to sell his cousin to a potential suitor.

Jean can’t quite stop himself from making a face at that, which sends Nicky into another fit of laughter. He reaches out and places a hand on Jean’s shoulder. It’s meant to be a sweet gesture but it makes his skin crawl, it makes him feel anxious. Nicky gives him a gentle pat on his shoulder, then pulls his hand back and Jean feels like he can breathe again.

“Okay, well, if you change your mind,” Nicky says with a wink.

“I won’t,” Jean says, before turning around and heading back to his store.

Inside, Renee is sitting behind the counter, reading a book Jean had recommended her a week ago. She looks up at the sound of the bell by the door ringing, and gives a small smile when she sees it’s Jean coming in. 

“Do you like chocolate muffins?” Jean asks.

“I do. Nicky told me he was going to bake a batch today. Did you buy any?”

“Not so much as bought as Nicky just adding them to my order. You want one?”

Renee nods and goes to the back to find a plate. Jean doesn't really keep utensils around, but she ends up finding some plastic plates hidden in a cupboard. She comes back as Jean unpacks his order and places the coffee cup on the table. Renee puts the muffins on their plates and gives one to Jean.

“Thank you,” he says, before taking a bite.

Nicky was right, the muffins are delicious. They’re sweet, an abundance of flavour and Jean can only barely resist a content sigh. Soon him and Renee fall into comfortable conversation. Jean thinks he might never get used to this, the small moments where he can just sit and talk about whatever. He never had this back when he lived with the Moriyamas, he was kept secluded from others and even if he was lucky enough to be in the company of anyone, they would never talk to him about something as simple as their weekend plans. 

“You know,” Renee said, gently shaking Jean from his thoughts. She is still smiling, but her eyes are softer, as if she noticed the way he began to slip. “Allison would really like to meet you one of these days.”

Renee doesn’t ask him if he’d like to meet Allison, so Jean doesn’t respond to it. She levels him with a calm look, then realises Jean wont respond and moves on to a safer topic. She never asked, though. It’s not until a little later that Jean realised that if she had, he would have agreed to it.

  
  


-

Jean closes the store early with the excuse of an old friend coming to town. It’s the excuse his marshall told him to give to anyone who might ask, so it’s the excuse he sticks with. Sometimes he feels a little bad about lying to Renee, but he also knows he has no choice. These small lies are what’s going to keep him safe from the mafia, they are what make up a consistent story that no one can poke holes through. He knows this, but he feels bad nonetheless. He considers Renee to be one of his friends, even if realistically, she knows nothing about the true Jean and therefore they can’t really be friends. He still likes to consider her one, though. He thinks that, even if his whole life here will be a lie, he still deserves some of the things that Riko and the master had so vigorously denied him. He feels like he deserves at least some comfort in this fucked up existence of his, even if he knows it will end up hurting him when he will inevitably lose it all.

He doesn’t like to think about it, but there is no denying it. You cannot deny the way the sun sets, nor the way the earth spins. Jean cannot deny that he will lose it all when the trial comes, but he can at least ignore that sense of impending doom everytime he has to meet with the marshall. Every time he reaches their pre-discussed meeting spot, he worries that it will be the last time he gets to leave and return home. He wonders if at least he will get to go back and take some of his things. He wonders if they’ll let him take Annie.

It’s best not to dread what has yet to come. Jean forces all thoughts of what this meeting might turn into out of his mind as he steps through the doors of an old warehouse. Despite the spring sun warming the outer walls from the building, once he steps inside a chill shivers down his spine. The walls are bare, not even a lick of graffiti can be found. The dull grey walls are either scratched up or partially destroyed, and the longer Jean stands in the beginning of the hallway, the longer it seems to stretch. The walls remind him too much of the basement he has spent more than half his life in. The only reason he isn’t spiraling is because he can see light coming down the hall from small windows. He forces himself to take a deep breath, then slowly makes his way down the hall. All he has to do is breathe, in and out, in and out. He matches his breathing to the sounds of his steps echoing down the wall. By the time he reaches the room where he is supposed to meet the marshall, he is able to hide the shaking of his hands.

The marshall is a woman who is old enough to be Jean’s mother. The corners of her eyes are wrinkled from years of gentle smiles, her face adores countless freckles from years spent in the Californian sun. She admitted on their third meeting that she had grown to like Jean, and so he was allowed to address her by her first name. It felt too much like disrespecting someone with power over him, it felt too much like a trap, so instead he greets her with, “Hello, Miss Jill.”

She smiles at him, gesturing for him to take a seat across from her. He looks down at the dirty floor and decides he is better off standing. When she realises he isn’t going to sit, she shrugs and stands up.

“Jean,” she says, in lieu of a greeting. “How are you holding up?” She continues as if she were an old friend rather than the FBI agent assigned to protecting Jean’s life. 

“I am doing alright,” he says, because he really is. Renee and Annie have kept him company on days where he feels tired and afraid. Annie would lay down on his stomach and purr while Jean ran his fingers through her fur. She would try to get his attention when he had a panic attack and one time even went as far as to bite him when he couldn’t escape his thought. It hadn’t been hard enough to pierce his skin, but it had shocked him out of his head enough that he could calm himself down. Then there is Renee, who is always only ever a phone call away. Who eats muffins with him and buys flowers for her girlfriend on her pay day. Renee, who’s hair is dyed soft colours but who holds a secret Jean feels rivals his own. They are the solace in his miserable life, the things he got up in the morning for. They are the things he fears to lose the most, but how do you explain such feelings to the woman you see once every month because they worry you might run away? You don’t, so Jean doesn’t try to explain any further than “alright.” 

“That’s good to hear,” Jill smiles at him. Jean can barely stop himself from smiling back, but he suppresses the feeling. 

“Well, let’s get started then. Have you seen anything suspicious?” Jill asks, like she does every other month.

Jill spends the next 30 minutes asking Jean questions about his cover story, his neighbours, his job and the people he crosses paths with everyday. It’s another strange routine that Jean has somehow found solace in. Every month he sits down with Jill and they talk about what’s going on, and if Jean ignores the bleak walls and the secrecy, he can almost pretend he is sitting here with a friend. 

“I’m glad to hear there is nothing out of the ordinary going on,” Jill smiles. “We have cracked down on more of the Moriyama’s people, and if things keep going at this rate it will be a month before we can put you on trail.”

It’s good news, it should make Jean happy to hear that he only has a month left in San Diego. Just one more month of hiding, just one more month of living in an apartment and wondering every night if tomorrow will be his last day. He should be happy to hear he is leaving, but he isn’t. In a month he will disappear without a word, without a trace and he will have to leave everything behind. He won’t be allowed to tell Renee where he is going, he won’t be allowed to ever contact her ever again. He’ll once again become nothing and no one. 

Jill says her goodbyes to him when he doesn’t have anything else to say and leaves him behind in the abandoned building. It takes Jean multiple tries before he manages to walk out into the quiet streets. His mind is on autopilot as he leaves the building behind him, his feet taking him where he’s supposed to go without really paying attention to where he goes. He only has a month left in San Diego, he only has a month left in his store, a month left of being with Renee. He’s never even met her friends, he never even tried the coffee she bought him. He doesn’t like to admit it, but he built a home for himself here, even when they told him not to get attached. Renee, Annie, and even Nicky had snuck their ways into his life and now the thought of living a life without them is painful. 

He could see his apartment in the distance and with a pang he realised he was going to miss it. He was going to miss the noise of the cars in the evening, the sound of his neighbours moving around their house. He was going to miss his Annie and the way she bit his hand when she wanted him to pay attention. With shaking and unsteady hands he took the keys to his apartment out of his pocket. He fumbles with the lock, drops the keys to the floor and whispers a soft _merde_ before picking them up and unlocking the door. He climbs the stairs to his apartment, unlocking the door and finding Annie curled up by the window. He walks over and climbs into the windowsill next to her, gently stroking her fur as she purrs. The sun is already slowly setting behind the tall buildings of the San Diego skyline, but the little bits of sunlight that still stream into Jean’s living room warm his face. He closes his eyes and allows himself to just relax as he leans back against the wall, he feels Annie shift so she can sit in his lap and he knows he’s falling asleep, but he’s so tired and exhausted he really can’t be bothered to fight it. So he keeps his eyes closed and slowly he drifts off into a dreamless sleep.

  
  
When Jean wakes up, it’s dark in his living room. The only light comes from the street lights outside. One look at the clock tells him it’s a little past midnight. He hasn’t eaten dinner yet and he still has to do groceries. Luckily, Jean has come to learn that grocery stores stay open during the night. That’s such a weird concept to him, but then again, Jean hasn’t been outside for most of his life, so maybe it isn’t that weird after all. Annie has left his lap hours ago, so he gets up and goes to the kitchen where he finds nothing but a few cans of soup. He’ll have to buy food that actually passes for dinner. Maybe he can try to cook pasta for himself, but the thought of doing it alone is already too tiring and Jean knows he’ll just settle for garlic bread from the oven again in the end. He never even learned how to cook. He never thought he’d need to learn, but he also never thought he’d get to see the sun or the moon again. Maybe he’ll go to a cooking class sometime, or maybe he’ll ask Renee to teach him. 

Maybe he should actually go to the store and buy food, he thinks as his stomach announces its hunger with a grumble. 

He takes his wallet from the table and grabs his only coat, which is too warm for spring, even when it’s chilly in the morning. He still puts it on, he hasn’t gone to buy a new one yet. He hasn’t fully realised that he will need one, that there will be more winters and even summers where his current coat will be too warm. 

It’s too much, especially for tonight, so he grabs his keys, forces the thoughts away and heads to the nearest Walmart. There is almost no one there, except those who finished their night shifts, some teens who are wasting their saturday night away at a walmart parking lot, and some drunk people. Jean likes it that way, it makes it easier to spot people who are out of place. People like him, he thinks as he grabs a shopping basket.

He heads inside, grabbing the few groceries he needs. Cat food, kitty litter, some oranges and a loaf of garlic bread he can throw in his shitty oven and eat for dinner. He heads through the isles to get to the counter when he passes a few of the earlier drunk people.

“Fuck you, I’ll ask someone else,” one of them says, before turning and pointing to Jean. “Candy,” he says.

Jean blinks, taking a moment to process that he is being asked something. “What?” Is all he manages to say, when he regains his composure.

“Candy, dude. What should we get?” He asks annoyed, as if Jean should have been able to understand that from one single word. 

Jean wants to just walk away, but he doesn’t want to risk pissing off some drunk guys. “I don’t know. I never had any before.”

“That’s sad,” the guy says, but turns to leave him alone.

Jean rolls his eyes and heads to the counter, putting his things on the conveyor belt. Behind him, he hears the drunk group talking about different beers as they put their own stuff on the belt of the other counter. One thing Jean never understood was how much people could talk about things that just didn’t matter at all. His marshall talked to him about basketball games all the time when they met up to see how Jean was holding up by himself. Eventually he had told her to knock it off.

“Good evening,” the boy behind the counter smiles at Jean, who only nods back as someone else puts his stuff in a bag. They don’t exchange any words other than what is necessary, but after Jean pays, he at least tells the boy to have a good night as he walks outside.

“Hey, sad boy!” A voice calls behind him as he heads back to his apartment. Turning around is on instinct, but he doesn’t recognise the guy in front of him. 

He has bleached blond curls sticking out in every direction from running his hand through it. He smiles at Jean as he holds out a bag of airheads. When Jean doesn’t reach to take it, he drops it in his bag instead.

“That’s not mine.” Jean frowns

“Yeah, but it’s— you said you never had candy before! That’s sad. So, I bought you some,” he says with a wide smile.

Jean says nothing and the guy shrugs, before running back to his friends. 

Jean heads home by himself.

  
  


-

  
  


At home Jean unpacks his groceries and finds the bag of airheads on top. The bag isn’t that big and Jean finds himself too curious about them to just throw them out. He takes a small bar out of the bag, unwraps it and studies it in his hand. It looks a bit like taffy, and when he takes a bite he has to chew a bit. It’s not bad, it has a fruity flavour. He reads the wrapper, which says it’s a watermelon flavour. 

Annie jumps up the counter and Jean lets her sniff the empty wrapper. She pushes her head against his arm and meows, which Jean assumes means she likes the smell of it. He puts the bag in the cabinet along with some of the coffee Renee bought him, before putting the garlic bread in the oven and heading to the living room. He quietly turns on the TV and sits down, Annie climbs into his lap and Jean smiles a bit. For once Jean feels content, he doesn’t dread the impending arrests as much as he did earlier that day. No, for once he thinks he’ll be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I wonder who the candy guy is.. weird, anyway, chapter two will be up tomorrow! Come say hi on my [tumblr if u want](https://eloquent-apollo.tumblr.com/)


	2. Eglantine Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hello good evening have some flower shop shenanigans! Also fun fact we have sort of hit my at first estimated word count of between 8-12k... yeah that didn't work out lmao

**Eglantine rose** / _eh•gluh•tain ro•hz_ / A wound to heal

* * *

Jean wakes up early on Monday thanks to Annie, who has learned to open doors by herself. She sits herself down on Jean’s chest and when that doesn’t immediately wake him up, she starts to meow as loud as she can. Jean tries, in vain, to ignore her, but she keeps at it for ten minutes and Jean realises the fight was lost before he ever started it. He sits up, forcing Annie off his chest. She stops meowing immediately and if Jean didn’t know any better, he would say she looked almost smug.

He doesn’t have to open up the shop today, so he takes his time getting ready. His wardrobe is mostly black, a bad habit that stayed even after he left his life of crime behind. There is one floral blouse, it was a gift from Renee. He reaches for it, feeling the soft fabric in his hands and pulls it off its hanger. It was actually Renee’s, but it was too big for her so she gave it to Jean so he’d have some colour in his wardrobe. He has never worn it before, but he feels confident for once. He takes off the shirt he slept in, turning away from the mirror so he doesn’t have to see the scars that line his abdomen, and tugs on the blouse. Surprisingly enough, it fits him quite well. When he turns in the mirror he is glad to see it’s still a little loose on him. It’s a little strange to see himself in something that isn’t black, but Annie’s meowing distracts him before he can get too hung up on it. He quickly pulls on pants and goes to the kitchen where he finds Annie already sitting on the counter. He had tried to teach her not to jump on counters or tables, but she must be the most stubborn animal on earth because nothing had worked. Eventually, he had given up and let her have her victory.

“Morning, mon petit chou,” he said as he gently scratched her chin. She purred and tried to bite his fingers, but Jean pulled his hand away before she could. Annie stood up, stretched out and trudged over to the cabinet where Jean kept her food.

“Clever girl.” 

He followed after her and pulled some dry food out of the cabinet while Annie pushed herself up against Jean, walking back and forth over the counter as she meowed loudly to demand food. He gave her a gentle push so she would back off, but she went right back to demanding attention, so Jean gave up on trying to teach his cat any form of discipline. He poured the dry food into Annie’s bowl and she immediately went to eat. 

He had fed his cat, now all that was left for Jean to do was feed himself. He rummaged through his cabinet, found nothing that he actually felt like eating, and pulled out his phone instead. A quick google search told him there was a bakery a ten minute walk away from his apartment, so he put on his shoes and went outside. He hadn’t had fresh bread in years, but the moment he stepped inside the bakery, he was reminded of early mornings in France and getting fresh bread with his mother. It was a bittersweet memory. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t even remember her face. The scent of bread and the sound of strangers’ voices pulls him back from the memory he almost got lost in. He steps further inside to look at the display of bread. He doubts the croissants they sell in America are half as good as those from France, but he orders two to take home anyway. 

He takes the croissants back home with him and starts up the kettle, opening the cupboard to look for coffee. He reaches for the package with instant coffee that he always drinks, the simple 3 in 1 kind that only needs water added to it, only to find that it is empty. He puts the empty carton down on his counter and looks into the cupboard. It is filled to the brim with different types of instant coffee that Renee bought for him. One of them has caramel in it, and Jean is reaching for it before he can stop himself. It’s a lot of coffee, and Jean only has a month before he has to leave San Diego, but he thinks he might be able to finish it all if he tries.

While the water heats up, Jean moves to his fridge to see if he has anything for his croissant. When he was little, his mother would buy him pains au chocolat or she would get croissants and put a thick layer of jam on it. Those were for special days, for lazy Saturday mornings and birthdays and for free days from school. Today is not a special day, but it still feels like one. It feels an awful lot like the start of a new life, even though deep down,Jean knows it’s the death of an old one. If he just pretends hard enough, if he just grabs the jam and puts it on his croissants, if he closes his eyes tight enough, those two concepts—the concepts of life and death itself— intertwine into one, into something worth celebrating. So he grabs his jam and makes himself breakfast, pours himself the coffee he never thought he would be allowed to try, and opens the windows in the living room to let in the sound of the city below. There is a busker playing somewhere down the street, the sound of his guitar carries up into Jean’s living room. He can’t make out the words of the song over the bustling sound of the streets below, but he can hear the melancholy. He can hear the heartache and the grief in the buskers voice. He closes the window again.

The radio in the kitchen is off, and the silence in Jean’s apartment is loud. He can still faintly hear the sound of cars passing by in the distance, but it is muffled by the window, keeping the liveliness of the streets out. The distant noises all blend into an uncomfortable ringing noise in his ears. It’s heavy, it pulls on Jean’s limbs and he sags into his couch. Moving has become a task that is too tiring to bear. Jean doesn’t even know what suddenly set off this switch in his mood but it’s nearly impossible to fight off. 

It isn’t until Annie breaks something in the kitchen that Jean can pull himself up. His kettle is on the floor, the leftover bit of water he hadn’t poured into the coffee soaks the floor and Jean’s feet. It’s no longer warm and Jean wonders just how long he had sat on his couch, staring off into nothing. He looks up from the mess to meet Annie’s eyes, but she just meows and walks away, leaving Jean to clean up her mess. He grabs tissues and starts to mop up the water, then checks the kettle for damage. There is a big dent in the side, but Jean doubts it’s actually broken beyond that. The thought of going out to buy a new one is tiring, so he puts it with his other dirty dishes and turns on his radio on his way out. The radio host's cheerful tone keeps Jean from slipping away again as he eats his croissants and drinks his coffee. It’s almost cold by now, but Jean stubbornly drinks it all. Throwing it away would be a waste, so he drinks his lukewarm coffee.

-

After his rough breakfast. Jean goes to the store an hour earlier than he said he’d be there. He finds Renee behind the counter, talking to a short blond guy and Nicky. The blond guy ignores him as he walks inside, but Nicky gives him an appreciative whistle as he steps inside.

“Nice shirt,” he says. “Oh this is my cousin by the way, but as it turns out, he already has a boyfriend! Though, if you change your mind I have plenty of friends to set you up with!” 

Jean decides to carefully decline that offer by walking right past Nicky, ignoring him, and disappearing behind the counter.

“Morning,” Jean says to Renee.

“Morning.”

She smiles at him, there is an understanding in her eyes that leaves Jean feeling naked. He turns away from her knowing gaze and instead makes his way over to the back of his shop. There are new flowers in the back and Jean goes through bouquets to see if there are any flowers that have to be taken out. Most of them have survived their journey to his shop, so he goes to check on his dried flowers instead. A few of the roses seem ready to be taken down, they have turned from a deep red to a dull shade of what they used to be. When Jean takes them down the leaves feel like dried paper. He’d hung them up weeks ago but he never really thought about what he was going to use them for, if he was going to take them home, sell them or leave them in the store for decoration. He runs a finger over the dried stem of the flower, considering what to do with them. He worries that if he takes the roses home, Annie will try to eat them like she used to do before he decided to take her home. The thought of her getting hurt by the thorns makes him a little worried, so he grabs one of the vases he had in storage and puts the roses in the middle of the lunch table.

“They look lovely there,” Renee says from behind him. He can’t hide the way he flinches at her sudden arrival, but Renee continues like she never even saw it. “Nicky and his cousin left, by the way.”

Jean turns to face Renee, who is closer to him than he thought she would be. He tries not to flinch away from her again, but he feels he isn’t quite successful. He doesn’t know why he’s so jumpy, if it’s lingering anxiety from his meeting with his marshall, or if it’s just one of his bad days. Renee once told him that you can always start over whenever you need to, that you don’t have to wait for the day to end to make it a good day. He wishes it was that simple, wishes he could just take a breath and do things better.

“Do you need a minute to yourself?” Renee asks.

Jean only nods and watches as Renee retreats back to the front of the store. He turns back to face the flowers, quietly reciting to himself which one he has hanging out to dry.

_Daisies, roses, forget-me-nots, lotus, asphodels._

He takes a deep breath, grounds himself in the here and now, and turns to the door. Maybe it’s not as easy as taking a breath and starting again, but he can at least try to do better. He only has a month left to live in San Diego, so he better makes this last month count. There are so many things Jean has been putting off because he feared he would grow too attached, but as he steps out into the shop and finds Renee tending to the sansevieria he realises he spent all that time fearing attachment only for him to get attached anyway. Maybe not to San Diego, maybe not to the traffic, the people in the streets but to his own little apartment, to his shop and to Annie and Renee. In some strange way, he realises he even became somewhat attached to Nicky and their short conversations whenever he’d buy lunch.

“Renee?” Jean starts, but before Renee can answer him the little bell at the front door rings to announce the presence of a new customer. Jean turns to the door and finds the Airheads guy standing at the door.

“Morning!” He says cheerfully.

“I regret to inform you that we are well into the afternoon,” Jean responds.

Airheads guy pulls out his phone to check the time and confirms that it is indeed already afternoon.

“My bad,” he says with a sheepish smile. He looks up from his phone to find Jean standing by the counter and for a second Airheads guy narrows his eyes.

“Hey, wait a minute!” he says. “You’re candy guy.”

Jean rolls his eyes and goes back to the counter, grabbing a bunch of roses to make into a bouquet. He can feel the Airheads guy eyes on him, but he doesn’t look up from his work. After a few more seconds the Airheads guy turns away from him and moves to different flowers. When Jean does look up, he finds him studying some of the flowers. He has a small sketchbook in his hands, occasionally he scribbles something in it and Jean realises he is sketching flowers. He turns back to his own flowers, cutting off the thorns from the rose stems, making sure that people won’t accidentally cut themselves on the roses when they grab them. He’d always found it rather interesting that something so beautiful had such sharp edges to them.

“Hey,” a voice says to his right. Jean looks up to find Airheads guy standing near him. He opens his mouth to say something back, but before he can, he feels a sharp pain in his left thumb. He drops the roses and the little knife he’s holding with a sharp _merde_. He looks down at his thumb and is a little taken aback to find dark red blood spilling down to his wrist. He hasn’t bled in months and for a second he doesn’t know what to do but to stare at the blood rolling down his thumb. He can’t even tell if the wound is deep, all he can see is a dark shade of red tainting his vision. His mind starts to go down a dangerous path, slipping back to memories of people begging for their lives, of the smell of gunpowder and the sound of a fluorescent light blinking overhead. But then suddenly Airheads guy is standing by his side, gently grabbing his hand and pulling him from his memories. For once the physical contact doesn’t make him feel trapped. He takes him to the sink and turns on the faucet, pulling Jean’s hand under the streaming water. Jean watches his blood wash down the sink and it’s all he can do to stop himself from slipping away.

“Where do you keep your bandages?” Airheads guy asks.

“What’s your name?” Jean asks, then frowns and looks up to find Airheads guy looking at him with a surprised look on his face. “I mean, uh, there in that cabinet to your left.”

“It’s Jeremy,” he says as he moves to grab bandages for Jean.

“Jean,” he replies, even though Jeremy didn’t ask for his name.

He doesn’t even know why he bothered to ask, realistically he won’t see Airhead- He won’t see _Jeremy_ again. Maybe it just felt like the right thing to do. He watches Jeremy grab a first aid kit and make his way back over to Jean. He turns off the faucet and takes Jean’s hand into his. His thumb is still bleeding but Jean can see it’s not that deep. It’s nothing compared to the cuts Riko used to leave on his body. Jeremy gently dabs a piece of cotton on Jean’s wound and it stings. Jean lets out a soft hiss and Jeremy gives him an apologetic smile in return.

“I’m just disinfecting it, it’ll be over soon,” he says, and soon enough he pulls the piece of cotton away. He cuts off a bandage and puts it over his thumb. “and voila! All better.”

“Thank you,” Jean says softly. No one has ever bandaged his wounds for him, no one ever held his hand as he stitched himself up or helped disinfect the wounds he had. Jean had always had to do those things himself. To have someone else do it so gently is a strange feeling. Not a bad feeling, but definitely a strange one.

“Gotta be more careful with that knife.” Jeremy says with a smile.

Jean hums and reaches for the small knife he used to cut the thorns and stems off his bouquets. There is a little bit of blood on the blade, he quickly turns on the faucet to wash it off before his brain starts to supply him with more thoughts of the last time he had held a bloody knife. Those aren’t thoughts he wants to have, not right now, so he takes a deep breath and forces them away. _You can start over whenever you want to, you don’t have to wait for tomorrow._

“So, uhm,” Jeremy starts. Jean looks up to meet Jeremy’s eyes. “I was wondering if you know what type of flowers those are?”

Jeremy makes a vague gesture to the corner of the shop where Renee is still tending to some of their plants. Jean doesn’t understand why he didn’t ask her for help, but walks over to the general direction where Jeremy had pointed. There are a bunch of flowers in glass jars, most of them have air roots so there is little to no soil in it, some of them are just kept in a layer of water with a lid on the glass jar to create their own ecosystem. Most of them are plants, so Jean assumes he is asking about the bromelia standing in a small glass jar. There is a little bit of soil in the bottom so the flower can get its nutrients, but the air roots are clearly visible everywhere else.

“It’s a bromelia,” Jean says, gently reaching to take it off its stand. He turns to Jeremy and hands him the plant, who turns it around in his hands to study it. Jean has always been fond of bromelias. The flower is completely surrounded by green leaves, and especially when they are smaller it almost looks like the flower is hiding. The one Jean had given to Jeremy had vibrant red and yellow leaves. In the middle they blended together into orange. They reminded Jean of the sunsets he could see outside of his window. “You’re actually not supposed to water the soil, that’s why it has so little. Most flowers and plants get their water through their roots, but you have to water the Bromelia in the rosette, because that’s how it gets its water.”

Jeremy nods, still looking at the leaves of the Bromelia. “Is it hard to keep alive?”

“It’s an easy flower, especially for starters. It doesn’t require much care and it’s a strong plant.” 

“I don’t really need a plant, but it’s so pretty,” Jeremy mumbles.

“It’s $9,” Jean says.

“Fuck it, sure, why not!” Jeremy looks up at Jean, smiling brightly at him. 

“You know, we’re neighbours, sorta,” Jeremy says as he follows Jean to the counter. “I’m the owner of the tattoo shop across the street,” he continues.

Jean remembers the small tattoo shop across the street, it’s called the Trojan Horse. He had looked it up online a few weeks after he came to San Diego. He still has the three on his cheek that branded him as Riko’s property. Tattooing over it would be an act of defiance, it would be admitting that he was free, something he both desperately wanted and feared more than anything else. It felt like freedom was right there, just out of reach. He was free from the Moriyamas’ grasps, but their chains had left nasty marks on his skin, and no matter how hard Jean tried he couldn’t get rid of them. He was free, but he was still too afraid to act out of line. Even when they weren’t breathing down his neck, Jean obeyed their rules to a certain degree. He was free, but he was still trapped by the shadows of what his life used to be.

“The world is quite small after all,” Jean said.

“Truly,” Jeremy responded as he paid for the bromelia.

Jean wrapped it up to protect it from the different climate outside, and Jeremy gladly took it from him.

“Well, I should head back to my shop, what with my break being over and all,” Jeremy said.

It wasn’t really something Jean could answer to, so he didn’t. He just watched Jeremy as he walked out of the store and waved Jean goodbye. Jean raised his own hand for a small wave and then Jeremy was gone. Jean turns back to the bouquets laying on the small table behind the counter and starts to work on finishing those up while the radio plays a song he vaguely recognises.

-

The following day Jean brings some of the coffee that Renee had bought for him to the flower shop. It’s still early when he starts to set everything up for the day, moving stands with flowers to the front so people can get a general idea of what he’s selling. Renee isn’t there yet, but she sends him a text message when she is 10 minutes away. Jean has finished setting up everything by then, so he moves to the back and makes two cups of coffee. He brought the chocolate mocha coffee with him to work. He isn’t really a fan of overly sweet coffee, but he quite likes the ones that Renee brought for him. He hopes Renee likes them too as he takes the two cups of coffee to the front just in time for Renee to come in. It’s raining lightly outside, and Renee is wearing a raincoat. She takes off the hood and turns to face Jean. When she sees the cups of coffee in his hands, she smiles fondly at him. She hangs her coat on one of the racks so it can drip in the corner to avoid tracking water through the store, then makes her way to Jean. She takes one of the cups of coffee from him, and stands next to him, close enough that they aren’t exactly touching.

“I’m proud of you, Jean,” she says before taking a sip.

Jean doesn’t know how to respond to that, no one has ever been proud of him before. All he can do is take a sip from his own cup and hide the small smile that appears on his lips behind the rim of his cup. Maybe one day he’ll learn how to drink more sweet coffee like this, maybe one day he will know how to respond to someone telling him they are proud of him, but today is not the day. Instead, he stands next to Renee as she starts telling him a story about something that happened the day before. He allows himself to relinquish this moment of normalcy that he has never had before, he allows himself to enjoy the small moments like these.

“Allison asked about you again,” Renee says after she finishes her story.

“Did she?”

“She is starting to think you don’t exist.”

“I… can come over for dinner this weekend, if you want me to?”

Jean turns to face Renee, she is looking back at him with a soft smile on her face.

“I think that would be great,” she said. “I’ll ask Allison what day works for her.”

Jean nods quietly, not sure what else to say. It’ll be nice to eat something other than soup and garlic bread from the oven for once, he thinks as he finishes his coffee. When Renee finishes hers, he takes the cup from her and walks to the back so he can clean the two cups. As he turns his back to the store, he hears the little bell ring to let him know there is a customer. Renee greets them with a polite morning, and then the door closes behind Jean and he is alone again. He fills up the sink with water and adds some dish soap, then washes the mugs and leaves them on a drying rack so they can dry by themselves. When he returns to the store, Renee is just finishing up with the customer that had come in. It’s a little kid buying a bunch of roses, probably for his mother or someone else in his family. When Jean comes in the kid looks over at him and waves excitedly, Jean waves back and then the kid runs off with his roses.

The rest of the day is slow, though Mr Martinez does show up again to buy flowers. This time when he starts to talk about his wife Jean listens and asks questions. It seems to make Mr Martinez happy. Jean’s parents were never like that. His mother had loved his father, but his father had only ever been interested in producing an heir to his empire. In the end it hadn’t mattered, his empire had crumpled and he had to sell his own son just to save his own skin. Mr Martinez and his wife are nothing like that, they met in the early 60’s and had fallen in love immediately. The moment they turned 18 they had eloped and gotten married. Mrs Martinez parents hadn’t wanted them to get married at the time, but Mr Martinez told Jean that eventually they came around.

“Oh look at the time,” Mr Matrtinez says in the middle of the story of their honeymoon to the Netherlands. “I better hurry home before Bessie comes home.”

He reaches for his wallet so he can pay for the roses, but Jean stops him by pushing the flowers into his hands. Mr Martinez looks at him confused and Jean shrugs as he says, “They’re on the house, you don’t have to pay.”

Mr Martinez smiles and carefully reaches out to grab Jean by his shoulder. When Jean doesn’t move away he gives him a small pat. “You’re a good kiddo.”

Jean watches as Mr Martinez walks away, unsure of what to say to that. Mr Martinez waves goodbye at him as he steps out of the door, and before it can fall shut it’s pushed open by Jeremy. He’s wearing a big yellow sweater, the sleeves cover his hands, but he rolls them up to show off a flower tattoo covering his right arm. It’s a simple black design, but Jean recognises some of the flowers nonetheless. Lilies and roses had quite a distinctive look to them, and the ones on Jeremy’s arm looked quite true to their real counterparts.

“Did you make that?” Jean asked.

Jeremy looks at him, then down at his arm. “Ha, I wish. I mean I came up with the design, but I had one of my employees tattoo it on me and she changed it up a bit.”

Jean comes from behind the counter and Jeremy holds up his arm so he can study it more closely. “Recognise any of the flowers?” Jeremy asks.

Jean hums and looks up at him. “Is that why you keep coming in? To look at flowers?”

“Yeah, you have really nice flowers and I mostly do floral tattoos.”

“Wait here,” Jean says before disappearing into the back.

He looked around the back through buckets with bouquets. He wasn’t sure if Jeremy had specific flowers in mind when he came here, or if he came just to see if he could find inspiration, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to suggest some flowers. The only problem was that he had so many it was hard to choose which one to give to Jeremy. In the end he settled for gladioli and snapdragons, they look kind of similar to each other in the way they grow, but the flowers themselves were distinctively different from one another. The snapdragon looked like it had a mouth and if you squeezed them gently they made a biting motion, whereas the gladioli were more round. Together with an Alstroemeria they would make a lovely bouquet to give to a friend, but they didn’t need a third flower to be beautiful. He takes them back to Jeremy, and he knows he really shouldn’t be giving out so many flowers for free, but the shop will permanently close in a month anyway so he figures it probably won’t hurt.

“What about these?” Jean asks.

“Oh those are gorgeous,” Jeremy starts to grab his wallet but Jean, for the second time that day, thrusts them into his customer’s hands.

“On the house,” Jean says with a casual shrug.

“Oh, thank you,” Jeremy says.

Jeremy picks up the bouquet and heads for the door, Jean goes after him so he can open the door for him. It’s stopped raining and just as Jean opens the door and steps outside with Jeremy, the sun breaks through the clouds, warm rays shining down on them. He tilts his head back to soak in the sun. It’s been three months and he can still never get enough of it. He is almost excited for summer, when the days will be longer and the sun will be excruciatingly warm. He can still vaguely recall the Marseillan summers, the warm sun and the beach. He can almost remember his mothers voice as she told him not to go too deep into the water. He can almost remember the rare moments when his father smiled, the few and fleeting moments where Jean lived a normal life.

“Come back tomorrow?” Jean asks before he can stop himself. He looks down at Jeremy again, who has already begun to cross the road. He stops, then realises he is in the middle of the street and runs back to Jean to avoid getting hit by a car.

“Come back tomorrow?” Jeremy repeats.

Jean nods slowly. “I’ll have more flowers for you,” he says.

Jeremy smiles and nods. “This time I’ll pay for them.”

“Nonsense,” Jean says, and he smiles.

It’s been so long since he last smiled like this, genuine and bright and in the open, not hidden behind coffee mugs or forced down into his usual frown. Jeremy smiles back at him and opens his mouth, no doubt to protest, but Jean waves him off before he can protest. He watches as he makes his way across the road again, jogging slightly as he runs between cars. Jean returns back inside, still smiling as he makes his way over to the stand with sunflowers. He is almost looking forward to seeing Jeremy again tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third chapter will be up tomorrow! Probably kinda late again bc I have class till 5:15 PM ): who's idea was that


	3. Aster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its time for one of my beloved cooking scenes except it kinda goes wrong ):

**Aster** / _A•str_ / Trusting

* * *

When Jean opens up the store the following morning, he asks Renee to man the front while he retreats to the back to look for new flowers for Jeremy. He opens the door to the storage and goes inside to see what he has in stock. There is an overflow of simple bouquets, of roses, sunflowers and even lilies, but there are also a lot of potted plants. Jean has never had to pick flowers for someone before and he’s overcome with the difficulty of it. He’s tempted to pick his favourite flowers, but he feels like that’s too easy. It doesn’t feel like making a choice, but like taking the easy way out. Instead, he decides that the first step is to decide on whether he will give Jeremy a bouquet or a potter plant. Yesterday he gave him a bouquet, so today he will pick a potted plant. He moves to the stands with potted plants and flowers and looks between them. The potted flowers are separated by species, their bright colours immediately catch anyone’s eyes when they step foot in the store, and it’s no different here in the dimly lit storage room. He reaches for the Mandevilla plants that are safely tucked in a corner next to the big hortensia plants. Their star shaped flowers come in a variety of colours, but the red ones had always been Jean’s favourites. He grabs one of the plants that’s hidden in the back for Jeremy, with soft pink flowers. It’s not a big plant, standing hidden from any light probably didn’t do it any good. He’s told Renee before that they should look into the possibility of adding a window. That way the flowers can have natural sunlight instead of the UV lamps they have standing around now, but knowing that he’ll leave in a month makes that thought useless.

Unless he can find someone to take over, the shop will probably have to close in a month. He’d hate to see the store close. Even if he can never come back here, he put a lot of time and effort into making the store what it is today. He looks through all the flowers he has standing in his storage, looks at the abundance of colour, the light and all the other things he never had. He knows that even after he leaves he still gets to have these things, maybe not here in San Diego, but he gets to keep the sun, he gets to keep the colours and the freedom. He gets to keep everything he ever dreamed of having ever since he set foot in the nightmare that became his life. He gets to keep it, but it feels too much like losing it all.

He turns around, leaving the flowers behind and steps out of the storage room with the Mandevilla safely tucked in his arms. He closes the door and tries not to think about what it will be like when he has to permanently close the shop. Now that he’s out in the backroom, where there are more big windows that let in natural sunlight, Jean can properly study the plant he’s taken from storage. There are a few damaged leaves, but Jean can just cut them off and then it’ll look as good as new. The soil is dry and he doubts the plant has been watered in a while, but despite that, it looks good.

He takes the flower to the faucet so he can water it a bit. He’s amazed by how well plants and flowers can survive in the wrong circumstances. Even with little to no natural light, even with too little water, the Mandevilla looks strong and healthy. A few of the leaves have taken the fall, but now that it’s been let into the right circumstances, Jean knows the flowers will grow and heal. He’ll be sure to tell Jeremy that the care of this particular flower has been a little neglected, but he’s sure Jeremy will take care of it. How he knows this, he’s not sure. After all, he barely knows Jeremy, but it is surprisingly easy to feel comfortable around him. Some people are just like that, they radiate this energy that says they are just good folk. He never used to believe those people existed, but Renee had proven him wrong when she marched into his life. He wonders if it will be like that with Jeremy, if he will become a positive force in his life as well, if he will become a friend.

“Nonsense,” he mutters to himself.

He barely knows Jeremy and he only has a month left in San Diego. He shouldn’t let Jeremy come too close. He will only disappoint when he disappears and when he will inevitably learn the ugly truth. Even if he manages to return to San Diego by some miracle, he doubts anyone he has met over the past few months will want anything to do with him anymore. He has lied to them, he has hidden his past from people that trusted him. Maybe it’s for the best if they don’t want to see him anymore. He turns off the faucet and takes the plant with him to the front of the store, where he places it on the counter with a little note that says “For Jeremy”. It’s still early in the morning, the weather outside is nice, a little warm for spring so a lot of people are probably heading for the beaches today, meaning traffic will be horrible when his shift ends. He might walk home instead, it’s a short twenty minute walk and it’ll give Jean some time to clear his mind. He knows Renee lives further away and she probably took her car to work today.

“Hey Renee?”

She turns around from where she is tending to some of the flowers on display, getting rid of damaged leaves and moving the older bouquets up to the front so they will be bought first. She smiles at Jean, silently telling him to go on.

“It’s…. are you doing anything tonight?”

It’s clearly not the question she had expected. She looks taken aback and for a second the smile disappears off her face, but it’s back before Jean knows it, and she shakes her head. “Allison has a work thing tonight, so I’ll be all alone. Why?”

“Well, it’s just-“ Jean stops and frowns, taking a second before he tries again. “I was wondering, what with how busy it will get around noon with traffic and all, if you’d like to have dinner at mine?” Jean lowers his gaze to Renee’s shoulders almost instinctively, looking away from her gaze is just easier.

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

Jean looks up at Renee’s smiling face and feels the urge to smile back. The urge to repress it comes almost as natural as breathing. The urge to hide his emotions, to be unreadable in the face of others, but Jean wonders if it will really hurt him to show his emotions to others. After all, he smiled at Jeremy the other day and that didn’t backfire either? Maybe it’s okay, maybe he should allow himself to learn how to just live, to stop worrying about the consequences when there are none. Maybe Jean should just smile, so he does, it’s small and almost unnoticeable but from the way Renee’s smile widens a bit he can tell she noticed it.

“We’ll have to do some groceries, I don’t have that much laying around.”

“That’s okay, we can take my car.”

Jean nods and returns to the small table behind the counter to check through their inventory. He hadn’t thought there would be so much to owning his own store, but owning the flower shop had proved him wrong. He doesn’t hate it, though. All the work he has to do keeps him busy and stops his mind from wandering to all the bad things. There are bad days of course, but Jean has found that they come a lot less. Sometimes his mind still wanders, but he finds it easier to pull himself out of these moments, and that knowledge gives him some joy. He can focus completely on the work in front of him, lose himself in the numbers and the flower names. He writes down what they have to restock, what doesn’t seem to sell that well and what is new in season. 

With the passing of the days some flowers die and others grow and flourish. Jean’s inventory changes quite frequently depending on what he needs, and he’s excited to see what the new week will bring. He’s about to look it up, when someone gently knocks on the wooden top of the counter. Jean looks up to find Jeremy looking down at him, a carefree smile on his face as usual.

“Hey there, neighbour,” Jeremy says.

Jean gets up from the chair he’d been sitting in and stretches. One glance at the clock tells him it’s already afternoon. It’s easy to get lost in the work, so easy that Jean didn’t even realise he had forgotten to get lunch.

“You’ve eaten anything yet?” Jean asks.

“Nope! Just finished up with a big tattoo, so I figured I’d pop into your store on my break. You wanna grab something?”

Jean nods and makes his way to the front of the store, he doesn’t have to turn around to know that Jeremy is following him. He stops next to Renee, who is watering some plants that are hanging from the ceiling. She has to stand on a step stool to reach them and even then she has to stand on her toes. Jean holds out his hand for the watering can and waters the last few flowers for her while she gets down.

“You can close the store for a bit if you want to take a break as well,” Jean says when he empties the watering can. “I’m going for lunch with Jeremy.”

“Alright,” Renee replies.

Jean turns around to face Jeremy and gestures for him to lead the way. Jean rarely goes out for lunch, except when he goes to buy coffee from Nicky. He glances in the direction of his store, but it’s closed for the day. Nicky is most likely enjoying the warm weather with his friends and Jean doesn’t blame him. He regrets wearing a sweater for the day. After ten minutes of walking he is covered in sweat. He’s still not used to the warm weather. He almost misses winter, but he loves the longer days too much to actively wish for the winter to come back.

“Aren’t you getting pretty hot in that sweater?” Jeremy asks, probably as an attempt to start a conversation. Jean doesn’t blame him, he’s never really been good at talking.

“Yeah,” he says, ever so eloquently. “I uh, laundry day,” he adds.

“Ah, ain't that a mood!” Jeremy says with a chuckle.

Jean shrugs, not entirely sure if that is a mood or not. It doesn’t really seem to matter, because Jeremy continues on with a story of a time when he had forgotten to do laundry and he had nothing to wear on his interview for some office job. He had ended up having to go in clothes from one of his friends. Jean listens as Jeremy laughs and tells his story, making wild hand gestures and slowly the talking starts to fade to background noise. Something about Jeremy’s carefree demeanor is mesmerising, and Jean finds himself distracted by the way he moves his hands. It isn’t until Jeremy says his name that he snaps back to the present.

“What?”

“I asked you if you had a preference for lunch?”

“Oh, no. As long as it isn’t soup with garlic bread,” he says with a shrug, again.

“I sense a story there,” Jeremy gently pries, and Jean knows he can just leave it at that, but he kind of wants to tell Jeremy more about himself.

So he does. He tells him about how he doesn’t even know how to cook, but he had no other choice but to move out and so he’s been eating nothing but soup with garlic bread and microwave meals. In return Jeremy tells him about when he first moved out, into a college dorm in LA, and how he almost burned down the kitchen when he tried to make dinner for the first time. His roommate had apparently banned him from cooking for the rest of the semester, and when he was allowed to try and cook again, he almost burned the kitchen down for a second time.

“See, that is why I don’t bother to try,” Jean says.

Jeremy laughs at that, and Jean can feel himself smiling again ever so slightly.

“Oh, we’re here. The best noodle shop in San Diego!”

Jean looks at the small shop that they stopped at. It’s crowded inside, but when Jeremy pulls open the door, he is immediately greeted by a woman behind the counter. From the way Jeremy moves to give her a hug, Jean figures they must be friends. When she lets go of Jeremy she turns to Jean, looks him up and down and says something to Jeremy in Spanish. Whatever it is, it makes Jeremy blush. He quickly swats his friend on the arm, before replying in Spanish. Jean has spent so much time talking in Japanese that any other foreign language sounds weird to him, but at least now he knows what the others felt like when he was speaking with Kevin in French. It feels weird to be kept out of a conversation like that.

“Right, sorry,” Jeremy says, as if he read Jean’s mind. “This is one of my roommates, Alvarez. Alvarez, this is the candy guy, Jean.”

“Ah, the candy guy,” Alvarez says with a nod. Jean can’t quite fight off the frown that appears on his face. “Well, let me take you to a table!”

Alvarez takes them to the busy crowd, ignoring the protests of a group that arrived here before Jeremy and Jean, and takes them to a small table for two in the back of the shop. Even though the shop is almost completely full in the front, it is pretty quiet in the back. Almost as if all the guests in the front were never even there. Jean can hear quiet music playing over the speakers and he feels himself relax a little in the chair. Jeremy takes a menu from Alvarez and passes one to Jean, who takes it and opens it. He can’t remember the last time he’d been to a restaurant, he thinks the last time might have been for his seventh birthday party with his mother and sisters in France. It’s a good but distant memory, so Jean lets it rest and focuses on the restaurant he is in now. The menu has a variety of food he has never tried before, most of it is ramen, but they also offer a couple of side dishes.

“Ever had ramen before?” Jeremy asks.

“Uh, no. Any recommendations?” Jean looks up from his menu to find Jeremy already looking at him. His menu is still closed, but when he catches Jean’s eyes he quickly opens it to hide behind.

“Let’s see,” he says, reading off the menu. Jean looks back at his own menu, reading over all the varieties of ramen they offer. All of them seem pretty good, making it hard to choose. He figures the best thing he can do is start with eliminating what he doesn’t want to try.

“I usually have kimchi ramen with extra pork belly char siu,” Jeremy says.

Jean skims the menu until he finds the kimchi ramen. It’s a ramen with kimchi in a light chicken broth, topped with a whole lot of other things that sound pretty good. In the end, most of the options seem pretty good, so when Alvarez comes back to take their order Jean ends up picking the same as Jeremy. Jeremy orders some sweet coffee as well, but Jean sticks to water. Alvarez pats Jeremy on the back before disappearing to pass their order to the kitchen.

“How long have you been in San Diego?” Jeremy asks.

Jean knows that he’s probably just trying to start a conversation, but he tenses up regardless. It’s part of getting to know each other, to ask questions and learn more about each other, but for a man who’s hiding his past in fear of it catching up with him, it’s exactly these questions he wants to avoid. There is always the risk of a lie falling through, of getting caught up and forgetting details. Jean has an easy script that he is meant to stick to, and so far it hasn’t caused him any trouble. So far he has always managed to say just the right thing to stop people from questioning whether he is speaking the truth or not. However, every time he fears that if he says something it will be the wrong thing. _How long have you been in San Diego?_ three months. _Where are you from?_ I moved here for college from Normande. Lies, lies, lies and nothing but lies, but these lies were designed to keep him safe, so he looks up at Jeremy with a fake sense of calmness, a mask he has practiced to perfection as he says, “About three months.”

Jeremy waits for him to continue, to tell him what brought him here, but Jean never says more than he is asked. Jeremy waits for a couple of seconds before he realises that he will have to explicitly ask Jean for more, and when that sinks in, the look that crosses his face is not the one Jean had expected. Nicky had rolled his eyes before battering him with countless questions, so many that he had forgotten half of them by the time Jean finally answered them. Renee had looked somewhat understanding, she had asked him questions and Jean had answered them in short, practiced sentences and she had not once asked him why. No one had looked at him the way Jeremy does, with a sad and concerned look in their eyes. As if Jean’s silence and unwillingness to speak about himself was the worst thing they had ever seen. Jean isn’t used to this pity, so he looks away to the painting on the wall by their booth. Jeremy isn’t content with letting the issue rest there, though, because he reaches out and gently grabs his wrist. It is meant to be comforting, but all Jean can think of is the handcuffs and the wounds they left on his wrist as he desperately tried to free himself. Jeremy’s grip isn’t strong, so Jean pulls his hand back and rests it on his lap.

“Jean,” Jeremy says, voice soft with something akin to understanding. Except Jeremy doesn’t understand, he can’t understand what he had been through. Jean turns to face him, no longer trying to school his expression into neutral indifference. There is anger written on his face, he doesn’t have to see himself to know that it’s there, but Jeremy barely responds to it. He pulls his own hands back, keeping them on his side of the table. The only thing he says is a quiet, “Sorry.”

It hadn’t been what Jean had expected and it punches the anger right out of him. He stares at Jeremy for a few seconds, before turning back to the stupid painting on the wall. It is a lonely raven in flight, leaving behind a forest. Jean turns away again, face down towards the table.

“I moved here from Marseilles,” Jean says, quietly. It is a half-truth. He doesn’t know why he feels so compelled to give this to Jeremy, but when he looks up, that brilliant smile is back on his face and it melts Jean’s icy exterior just a little. Maybe it is an apology for his hostile behaviour, maybe it is a part of him that longed to be his own person, or maybe it is the foolish part of him that doesn’t care if he gets caught or not. Whatever it is, it lights a small fire inside of him. It is the most true to himself he has felt in a long time. He knows he is allowed to be his own person now. He is allowed to explore his own life and learn and want things, but it is still hard to believe he can be this own version of himself. The lies he was ordered to tell by the FBI certainly don’t aid him in being free, but he also knows their lies are different from the Moriyama’s lies and ugly truths.

“That’s in the south of France, right? I’ve only ever been to Paris,” Jeremy says, acting as if that uncomfortable moment of earlier had never happened. Jean is thankful for it, he doesn’t want to have to explain.

“Yes, it is. My mother and I lived near the port and the beaches. I could see the sea from my bedroom window.”

Jeremy smiles as if he can imagine it, something Jean can hardly do anymore. Sometimes he has dreams of the roar of the ocean, of his mother and his sisters swimming in the sea, of memories that weren’t stained by the presence of his father. He likes to imagine those good times, the days where his father was away on long business trips, memories of Sundays spent in church, of sitting by his sister Sylvie as she played the piano in the living room. She wasn’t particularly good, but Jean would sit and watch her play like it was the best thing he had ever heard every time. Something in him aches to tell Jeremy about the piano and the church mornings, but his survival instinct makes him keep quiet. Instead he listens to Jeremy as he starts to tell him about summer breaks spent in Paris. 

He talks until their food arrives and only stops to eat his ramen, then he lunges right back into his stories. Jean listens, and for once it isn’t to hide himself away. For once it isn’t to avoid the questions of telling his own stories. For once, he listens because he wants to, because he wants to see Jeremy smiling as he tells him about his younger sister getting lost in the streets and running into a famous French actor. The name sounds vaguely familiar, Jean thinks he might have watched some of her movies with his mother, but he doesn’t dare to interrupt Jeremy as he speaks. All he wants to do is eat his own ramen and listen as Jeremy goes on.

“I didn’t mean to dominate the conversation,” Jeremy says, smiling apologetically as he finishes his story about Paris, but Jean waves it away with ease.

“I liked listening to you talk,” he says with a shrug.

Jeremy’s apologetic smile turns into a more genuine one and Jean manages a small smile of his own. They finish their ramen and it doesn’t take long for Alvarez to make her way to their table.

“Can I help you guys with anything else?” She asks.

Jean checks the time on his watch and sees they’ve been out for two hours. He should really head back to the store, he can’t leave Renee all alone for the rest of the afternoon.

“No, thank you. I should really go back to the shop,” Jean says.

“Oh yeah! I have a customer coming for a cover up in, like, 30 minutes,” Jeremy says.

Alvarez hums and disappears, leaving the two men alone again. Jeremy turns a sheepish smile on Jean and it only now dawns on Jean that Jeremy seems to be smiling all the time. He is always happy, always in a good mood. Jean didn’t think people like that actually existed, but then again, he doesn’t really know Jeremy all that well, maybe this is all a front. He idly wonders what it takes to make Jeremy snap, wonders if Jeremy has ever gotten so mad that he had shouted at people. He wonders if he's anything like Riko, if that smile hides something dark, but then he remembers the concern that had crossed his face when Jean had withdrawn from him. When Jean had met him with anger, Jeremy returned it with compassion. 

Alvarez soon returns with the check and Jean and Jeremy split the bill between the two of them. They get up and leave after that, and on their way out Jeremy grabs two lollipops from a bowl on the counter. He unwraps one for himself and holds out another for Jean, who takes it and stuffs it in his pocket.

“Figured, if anything, I can just repay you for the plants with candy,” Jeremy says, his words a little muffled as he refuses to take the lollipop out of his mouth.

“I think I already told you, there is no need to.”

“You said there is no need to pay, you never said anything about repaying. Besides, you get to learn about new candy!”

Jean recognises a fight he can’t win when he sees one, so he wisely keeps his mouth shut and follows Jeremy back to their respective stores. Jean stuffs his hands in his pocket, curling his fist around the lollipop as he walks behind Jeremy in silence. It’s not far from their shops, after a few minutes Jean can already see the sign for the Trojan Horse. Jean moves to cross the street, but before he can, Jeremy gently grabs his upper arm.

“Hey Jean?” He asks.

Jean turns back around to face him and Jeremy lets go of his arm.

“Can I have your number? Figured I should show you what I do with those plants you give me.”

“Oh, of course,” Jean says, digging for his phone.

He has no other contacts in his phone besides Renee. Not even Nicky got his phone number, though he definitely tried. When he finds his phone he hands it to Jeremy, who goes to his contacts and adds his number for him. 

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow I guess,” Jeremy says before heading back inside his own store.

Jean turns away, making the short walk back to his flower shop. It’s almost empty inside except for one woman who is ringing up with Renee. When Jean steps in, Renee looks up from what she is doing and smiles at Jean. He returns her smile with a small nod before heading to the back to finish up on inventory. It only takes him an hour to finish, and when he steps outside he finds Renee sitting behind the counter enjoying some tea. It’s early, but despite that Jean still decides to close the store. He takes all the stands inside. When Renee realises what he is doing she moves to get up, but Jean waves her away and tells her to enjoy her tea. It’s not a lot of work anyway, he finished cleaning up in 10 minutes. He decides he can clean the floor tomorrow before he opens, so he goes to lock up the front door and grabs his stuff from the small break room. Renee gets up and follows him out through the backdoor which he locks and subsequently double checks to make sure he really locked it.

“We should do some shopping for dinner,” Jean says to Renee.

She hums and leads the way to the small grocery store on the corner. It’s busy inside as people are slowly making their way back from beaches and pools, the AC inside providing cooling on this unusually hot spring day. Jean and Renee make their way through groups of people towards the back of the store. The toilet paper section is blissfully empty and it is there that they discuss what they could make for dinner. Jean never once brings up the fact that he doesn’t know how to cook, feeling almost embarrassed to say it out loud, even though he knows that Renee would not judge him for it. Luckily, Renee suggests something easy on account of the unusual heat, claiming that anything that takes longer than twenty minutes to make is just too much. Jean agrees, though he thinks twenty minutes still sounds like a long time to spend on cooking, but he keeps that thought to himself. They settle for buying white rice together with chicken and some vegetables. Renee says that it won’t take too long to make and it’s cheap. 

They pay and make their way to Jean’s apartment, where they are immediately assaulted by the heat. The flower shop and the little grocery store both had their ACs turned on, but Jean had forgotten about the one in his apartment when he left earlier this morning. It doesn’t help that the big windows let all the sunlight in. Jean almost trips over Annie in his hurry to open the window to let some fresh air in. The heat from outside does nothing to cool the apartment down in any way, and Jean groans as he rests his head against the wall. Even the bricks feel warm against his skin, so Jean moves away to figure out how to turn the AC unit on.

He finally finds the remote to his AC and presses the button to turn it on. Slowly, his AC comes to life. A steady hum fills the room and slowly the smothering heat starts to cool down. Jean doesn’t look forward to cooking in his kitchen and being surrounded by more heat, but he can’t let Renee do all the work, so he walks into the kitchen to find Renee has already started cutting the chicken. Jean takes the vegetables and cuts them up into tiny pieces. Realistically, he could really use Renee’s help, but when she goes to grab some pans, Jean ushers her away, reassuring her that he’s got this all under control. It isn’t until he is alone and turns to look at the ingredients in front of him that he realises he doesn’t got it all under control. He could google how to do it, but his phone is in the living room and he doesn’t want to go back for it and pass by Renee.

“How hard can it be,” Jean mutters to himself, trying to remember the few times he helped his mother cook.

His brain comes up empty handed. All he remembers is the radio playing French songs and his mother’s smile as she sang along with Jean. Those memories are of no help to him in the moment, and as much as he wants to linger in the comfort of those rare good moments of his past, Jean pushes them back and settles for the task at hand. He remembers to add water to the rice, but he has no idea how long it has to boil for. He isn’t even entirely sure if there is enough water in the pot, but he puts the lid on and sets it on a high fire. He looks for a pan for the chicken and vegetables and throws them in, grabbing a spatula so he can stir every now and then. It only takes a couple of minutes for Jean to realise he has done something wrong, because the chicken sticks to the pan and no matter how hard Jean tries to pry it loose, it won't come off. The vegetables meet the same unfortunate fate, and soon the smell of something burning fills the kitchen. The small pieces of chicken he does manage to turn are charred at the bottom, so he turns the fire lower and hopes that this will help.

It does not. When Jean turns the chicken on another side it stubbornly sticks to the pan like its life depends on it. He can feel anger bubbling at the surface, frustration at his own inability to cook a simple dinner. Anger at the knowledge that, if his life had been any different, his mother could have taught him how to cook something that, according to Renee, is a quick and simple dish. It isn’t until the smoke detector overhead starts beeping loudly that Jean realises even his rice has managed to burn. He goes to reach for the lid but then Renee is there and she pulls him away from the smoke and Jean realises he is crying.

“I don’t know how to cook,” Jean says, even though it is painfully obvious.

Renee says nothing but grabs a towel to take the pots and pans off the stove, belatedly Jean realises that he would have burned himself had Renee not stopped him from touching the metal of the lid. She opens a window and Jean finally remembers to move. He reaches up for the smoke detector and taps on the small button that turns it off. The kitchen is silent except for the sound of the faucet running and when Jean turns back to the mess he’s made, he sees Renee filling the sink. She scrapes away at the burned remains as best as she can, but some of it sticks to the bottom. What she can’t scrape away she leaves for what it is. She then puts the whole pan in the sink so it can soak and hopefully the last remains will come loose eventually.

“I’m sorry,” Jean says quietly.

“It’s okay. I can teach you how to cook,” Renee said.

Jean looks at the mess in the kitchen, and as if Renee could read his mind, she continues with, “But perhaps not today? We’ll order take out.”

Jean accepts that and decides to leave the clean-up for the morning. They get comfortable on the couch together, Annie jumping into Renee’s lap to make herself comfortable. They go over choices for dinner but eventually settle on getting French fries and burgers, which they eat together while enjoying a movie. Halfway through Renee receives a text from Allison, and she asks Jean if he can come over on Saturday. Jean finds himself looking forward to meeting Allison and spending another night with Renee. He finds himself looking forward to seeing Jeremy again the following morning. Jean never had anything to look forward to.

Back in the basement, he had lived one day at a time because if he tried to think of a future, it meant admitting to himself that he didn’t have one. When he first moved to San Diego he had no friends. He had nothing to do on the days his shop was closed and during the nights he was alone, but now he has all of those things. He has a future, he has friends, he has things to do when he is alone. On the edge of those positive thoughts was the knowledge that all of it is temporary, that in less than a month he will lose it all. However if Jean closes his eyes and focuses on the sound of the movie and the body heat coming from Renee, who had fallen asleep leaning against him towards the end of the movie. If he closes his eyes and only focuses on what is in front of him, he could ignore the ugly truth that it’s all going to be stripped away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I might not be able to upload chapter four tomorrow but I'll do my very best! If I can't you guys are getting two chapters on Sunday tho so hey win win? Maybe?


	4. Peony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with an animal death at the end (A still born kitten, specifically) it isn't very graphic or anything but if you can't handle that I would stop reading after
> 
> "Mreow? It comes from his bedroom" and ends after "He doesn’t even realise it’s almost 1 AM, until Jeremy picks up."
> 
> After that it's still vaguely mentioned by Jean but yeah

**Peony** / _Pee•uh•nee_ / shame and honesty

* * *

Saturday mornings are usually quiet at Jean’s shop, people sleep in. Only around the afternoon people begin to trickle in, but this Saturday begins with Jeremy walking into the shop and dumping candy on Jean’s counter. Jean looks down at the different packages, then up at Jeremy’s wide smile. Jeremy had kept true to his promise, and after their lunch he had come by every now and then to pop into the store and give Jean some American candy he had never tried before. Jean had figured it wouldn’t take long before Jeremy began to run out of candy to give Jean, but the small pile on his counter tells Jean he has vastly underestimated how much candy one can find in a store.

“Come on, try one,” Jeremy says as he goes to stand behind the counter next to Jean.

“I don’t recall you working here,” Jean says.

Jeremy laughs and remains where he is, close enough for Jean to feel his body heat, but far enough that they don’t touch. Jean sighs and decides it’s not worth it, so instead he picks up one of the colourfully wrapped candies laying in front of him. The label says they’re Laffy Taffies, but that doesn’t tell Jean much. He glances at Jeremy, but he is still wearing his signature smile. The wrapper is bright yellow and there is an image of a banana on it, so it’s safe to assume that it’s banana flavoured. He can see more Laffy Taffies laying on his counter in different colours with different flavours, it seems Jeremy had brought all the flavours he could find.

“Fine,” Jean says before tearing open the wrapper. The candy has a similar shade of yellow as its wrapper. Before Jean can change his mind, he pops it in his mouth.

It’s chewy, but the flavour is quite nice, if not a bit artificial. He studies the wrapper a bit more and finds a small text printed on the outside of the wrapper. It reads, “What do you call a cow with no legs? – Ground beef.”

“Jesus that’s bad,” Jean mutters.

Jeremy moves closer to Jean, pressing himself up against his back so he can look over his shoulder to see what the wrapper says. He quietly mutters the words as he reads, and then he starts to laugh.

“It’s not that bad,” he says with a chuckle.

“It most certainly is.”

Jeremy rolls his eyes but before he can say anything else, the bell on the front door dings as Renee steps inside. She is carrying some boxes. Jeremy moves away from Jean to help her carry them inside. Jean shivers at the sudden loss of touch and heat as Jeremy walks away, but he goes after him to help Renee as well. The boxes contain new flower pots that Jean had ordered. Some of the better selling old designs needed to be restocked and he had also ordered some new designs to go along with them. With Jeremy and Renee’s help he moves them to the back and opens a few of the boxes to check if he had been sent the right order. The small mason jars definitely sold the best, so he had ordered the most of them.

“Will you be alright on your own?” Renee asks when the bell at the front door dings again to alert them of a customer.

Jean nods without looking up and hears Renee’s retreating footsteps. Jeremy doesn’t follow her, so Jean gestures at him to make himself useful. Somehow Jeremy understands the vague gesture and he grabs a box to check through. They sit in silence save for the sound of boxes being torn open. Occasionally, Jeremy gives him a number for how many pots he found in his box, and Jean scribbles them down on a piece of paper with a description of what pots he bought. In the end all his pots are there, so Jean and Jeremy move them all to the storage room, except for the pots that have to be restocked. Jeremy tries to grab a bunch of pots and help Jean with restocking, but Jean gently slaps his hand away and gives him a not entirely convincing glare. Jeremy only smiles and shrugs, and when Jean turns his back to him, grabs the pots anyway.

“Énervant,” Jean mutters.

“I don’t know what that means,” Jeremy says as he stocks the mason jars with Jean.

“Good,” Jean says. “Don’t you have your own store to take care of?”

“I do, but we’re closed today.”

Jean shrugs a bit, leaving Jeremy to interpret that however he wants. Jeremy doesn’t respond and continues stocking Jean’s shelves for him, so Jean leaves him to it and goes to the counter to help Renee with their customer. The day continues slowly, occasionally Jeremy makes Jean try some candy, but they spend most of the early morning keeping themselves busy with cleaning up around the shop. Jeremy again tries to help Jean clean up, but Jean gently pokes him with his broom and levels him with another unconvincing glare that Jeremy decides to interpret as friendly banter, because he laughs and throws his hands up in defeat. Jean turns his back to him and begins to sweep the floor, pretending not to hear Renee tell Jeremy where the dustpan is.

While Jean sweeps, Renee turns on the radio and soft music fills the otherwise quiet shop. Jean doesn’t recognise the song, but as Jeremy uses the dustpan to sweep up the piles of dust and dirt that Jean sweeps, he slowly starts to hum along to the song. His humming slowly turns to mumbling, and then Renee is quietly singing along. Jeremy laughs as he stands up, using the sweeper as a makeshift microphone as he sings along with Renee. Jean watches them with amusement, a soft smile making its way to Jean’s face as Jeremy turns around and begins to serenade Jean.

“Okay,” he says with a laugh, gently pushing the sweeper away as Jeremy points it in his face.

“Sing with us!” Jeremy exclaims with a laugh.

Jean doesn’t want to tell Jeremy he doesn’t know the song, so he just rolls his eyes and continues his attempt at cleaning the floor. After knowing Jeremy for a week, Jean has learned that he doesn’t easily give up, and he shouldn’t have expected Jeremy to change his ways now. Jeremy grabs his arm and pulls him towards him, making Jean drop the broom he’d been holding. Jeremy begins to sway his body to the music, holding Jean by the arm in an attempt to get him to join. Jean levels him with an unimpressed frown, but Jeremy pretends he doesn’t notice as he grabs Jean’s other arm and just kind of begins to pull him along.

“Mon Dieu,” Jean sighs, but he finally gives in.

Jean isn’t very good at dancing, but Jeremy hardly seems to care. He smiles brightly when he realises he’s convinced Jean to dance with him, and Renee laughs as Jeremy’s dancing gets more elaborate. Jean decides to just stick to swaying his body like Jeremy had earlier, but Jeremy decides to go all out, and as it turns out, Jeremy isn’t very good at dancing either. He makes up for his awkward dancing with enthusiasm and a cheerfulness that is so infectious that Jean almost wants to join him in his weird dancing. Almost, though, because Jean isn’t so keen on embarrassing himself as Jeremy apparently is. Still, as ridiculous as it looks, Jean thinks it also looks fun. Jeremy just grabs his ankle and makes some weird move and Jean can’t stop himself from laughing. It takes a lot of effort to stop and school his expression into something more natural, but when he manages he puts a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder to stop him from hurting himself.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Jean says, removing his hand again. “Before you break something.”

They clean the rest of the store in relative silence, with only the sound of the radio to distract them. Occasionally, when a song comes up that Jeremy knows he quietly sings along, but he doesn’t break into dancing again. Even though Jeremy was the one that told him to stop, he kind of wished he’d do it again. It felt nice to laugh, to be carefree for once. He can’t imagine himself ever being like that, so free and without worries. To not look over his shoulder for Riko at every turn he takes, to just be and enjoy life. 

He thinks that maybe one day he can be like that, when Riko is locked up and Jean has left San Diego far behind. It should be a happy thought, but grief gnaws at the corner of his mind. Unforgiving, fierce and painful grief. Jean can do nothing to stop it, except try to think of the people that had welcomed him into their lives three months ago. He holds these people close to his heart, a place where Jeremy is slowly making himself a home as well. The memories of his friends should comfort him, but grief tears them apart with long claws, with painful reminders that soon they will be nothing more than distant reminders. It hurts, but it is the truth, so Jean focusses on sweeping the floor for a second time. It’s clean, but neither Jeremy nor Renee seem to have the heart to tell him so.

-

For the second time that week, Jean closes the store early and leaves with Renee. She never asked Jean what had changed his mood earlier that morning, but her gentle voice as she suggested closing early so they could do some shopping told Jean she had noticed it. Jeremy had left them around the afternoon, saying he had agreed to spend his day off doing something fun with his roommates, but he had told Jean he could call him if he needed him. It was the only inclination he had noticed Jean’s change in mood as well, but Jean had told him nothing was wrong so he wasn’t going to call. It might have been a bit harsh to say, but Jean doubted Jeremy was hurt by it.

“I was thinking,” Renee begins as she takes Jean to her car. “I know I invited you to have dinner with us, but perhaps we can use this afternoon to teach you the basics of cooking?”

She doesn’t look at Jean as she opens the door to her car. It’s a little beat up, but well taken care of. Renee had told him it was the first car she had bought after she had gotten out of college, and although she could afford to replace it, the nostalgia and the pride of buying her own first car had stopped her from doing so. It probably cost more in maintenance than it would to replace it, but Jean keeps that thought to himself as he climbs inside.

“That would be nice. Thank you.”

Jean catches Renee’s small smile just in time before she turns her head away. Jean says nothing and turns to watch out the window as they drive off. Despite the fact that they locked up early, they still get caught up in traffic as they head downtown to Renee’s house. They slowly drive out of the city with the radio playing faintly. Jean doesn’t mean to doze off, but he feels so relaxed in the car he closes his eyes and slumber takes over.

Renee wakes him up again when they reach her house. There are groceries in the back of the car, and Jean realises he slept through Renee getting the last minute stuff for dinner. He wants to apologize, but when he turns to Renee she levels him with a calm smile. Jean knows what that means, and he turns his gaze down at his hands in his lap. He knows he should get up and get out, but it isn’t until he hears the sound of Renee’s car door opening that he actually thinks to do it.

He looks up again and gets out of the car. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the big building they stand in front of. It reminds him of the mansion where the Moriyamas lived. He had only seen it twice from the outside. When he first arrived from France, and when he left in police custody. Renee’s place is about as big and also built in a slightly similar style, but the colours are vibrant and welcoming. There are flowers hanging on the porch, and he recognises them from his store. He pushes the thought of Riko away, but he still thinks he can smell gunpowder and blood when he stands in front of the home.

“Allison comes from money,” Renee explains as she opens the front door.

Jean doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he stays silent and follows Renee inside. She calls out for Allison, but there comes no response other than two dogs running to meet them. One of them jumps against Jean. The dog excitedly wags his tail and Jean reaches to scratch him behind his ear.

“That’s Pippin,” Renee says, before getting him to sit down.

Jean reaches to give him a few more pets, and Pippin barks in appreciation before running off to do whatever it is dogs do. Jean has never had pets before Annie, but he thinks he quite likes them now. Renee doesn’t linger for much longer at the front door and heads into the direction of the kitchen, so Jean trails after her, looking around the house as they make their way to the back. The whole place looks like it came fresh out of an interior design magazine, and for some reason, Jean feels slightly embarrassed of his own apartment now. Renee’s place is completely clean, and he knows it's probably because they are rich enough to hire help around the house, but it still makes him a little ashamed of his own messy apartment.

They step into the kitchen, which is almost as big as Jean’s living room. Renee unpacks the groceries on the kitchen island, and then goes to grab what she needs for cooking. Jean feels completely lost as he watches Renee rummage through cabinets and the fridge as she collects everything she didn’t have to buy for dinner. When she has all the ingredients, she motions for Jean to come closer to the island, and she begins to explain what they need to do to cook the pasta. It’s a sweet potato pasta that has to go into the oven, but they have to precook some of the things, which is why they are starting early.

“Let’s start with cutting up the ingredients,” Renee says as she hands Jean the beef and some onions.

Jean takes one of the knives and uses it to cut the beef into small pieces, while besides him Renee cuts up garlic. She’s a lot faster than Jean, cutting the garlic into tiny pieces, it’s almost fascinating to watch her go to work. He looks back at the beef he’s cutting and wonders if he could match Renee’s speed. He thinks that maybe, if he practices a lot, one day he could. That thought sparks a little bit of happiness, the realisation that he is learning things, that he is becoming independent and that he’s becoming his own person. He is becoming the one thing Riko had never wanted him to be; free. He returns to cutting the beef and when he finishes that, he cuts the onions and helps Renee with cooking.

It’s a bit of a mess, they keep bumping into each other, but after half an hour they are ready to put the pasta in the oven. Jean somehow got basil all over his hands. Renee watches with amusement in her eyes as he washes it off. Jean doesn’t think cooking is supposed to be this messy, but he knows deep down that it is supposed to be fun. 

Quietly, he hums a song to himself. It isn’t until Renee turns on _non, je ne regrette rien_ that he realises he’s been humming the song his mother used to sing when she cooked for him and his father. His chest tightens with nostalgia, but there is also a shimmer of pride at having cooked for himself. Maybe one day he will learn to live with what he had lost, maybe one day the feeling of loss will be outweighed by what he gained when he began to live for himself.

“Hello there.”

Another female voice distracts Jean from his thoughts, and he looks up to meet the eyes of who he assumes must be Allison. He had heard a lot about Allison from Renee, but it doesn’t quite compare to seeing her in person. Her long blonde hair is held up in a ponytail, and she is wearing a stunning suit. Belatedly, Jean remembers that Allison does something with fashion, he thinks it might have been design.

“Hello,” Jean says, quickly snatching a towel to dry his hands. When they’re dried he extends one to Allison, who takes it into her own hand. “I am Jean.”

Allison hums. “Yes, I heard a lot about you.”

That is apparently the extent of their first official meeting, because Allison lets go of his hand and walks over to Renee to give her a kiss. Renee smiles into it, and suddenly Jean feels like he is intruding on a moment he was never meant to catch, so he turns away and is glad to find the dogs waiting at the kitchen door. He walks over to them, gently scratching them behind their ears as Allison catches Renee up on her day at the office. Jean listens along and finds that he was right about her working in fashion design. Allison complains about meetings and people who didn’t do their work right and caused her problems. Jean thinks fashion must be tiring. When Allison finishes talking, Renee, in turn, informs her girlfriend about everything that had happened at the flower shop that day. Somehow Jean manages to get roped into their conversation by Renee asking him to tell Allison about dancing with Jeremy, so Jean obliges.

“Some music came on and Jeremy forced me to dance,” he says.

He’s never been good at carrying a conversation, but Renee gently prods more out of him. Jean feels slightly uncomfortable, and maybe Renee can tell because eventually she suggests they move to the living room. Allison agrees on the condition they watch a bad movie with wine. Jean doubts they have enough time for that, but follows Allison to pick a good wine to drink during the movie and dinner. They end up settling for a pinot noir, which Jean carries with him to the living room where Renee is already sitting on the couch with their two dogs. Jean sits down next to her, placing the merlot on the table while Allison comes in carrying three glasses. She pours each of them a glass before making herself comfortable on Renee’s other side, leaning against her as she turns on the tv.

They agree to vote on a movie, but when Allison’s choice is rejected she throws democracy out of the window and plays it anyway. Based on Renee’s smile when the movie starts, she doesn’t care. Jean has never seen the movie before, so he gets comfortable with his glass of wine and watches. The movie is about a girl whose boyfriend breaks up with her and she decides to go to law school to prove she’s just as smart as he is. Jean thinks he kind of likes it. He doesn’t even realise how engrossed he is in the movie until Allison pauses it to get their pasta out of the oven. Jean blinks a couple of times and stretches his limbs, they ache from having sat in the same position for the past 45 minutes.

“Are you having fun?” Renee asks softly.

Jean nods. He hadn’t talked much with Allison, but she seems nice enough. It makes him regret not taking the initiative to meet her sooner.

“She seems nice,” Jean replies softly.

Renee smiles before getting up to help Allison in the kitchen. When Jean moves to help as well she places a hand on his shoulder and shakes her head.

“You’re our guest and you already helped with cooking. Relax.”

Jean obediently does as told and instead takes out his phone. He finds a text from Jeremy waiting for him. It’s just a picture of a dog with no text. Jean stares at it for a few seconds, before turning to take a picture of Renee’s two dogs laying on the couch. He’s about to close his phone again when the small text that says _delivered_ turns to _read_. After a couple of seconds a text bubble appears to indicate that Jeremy is typing and then he gets three messages sent almost immediately after each other.

 _Jeremy_ : OMG

 _Jeremy:_!!!!!!

 _Jeremy:_ Are they yours? I thought you had a cat

 _Jean:_ They are Renee’s. I am having dinner with her and her girlfriend.

 _Jeremy:_ They’re so cute bah!

 _Jeremy:_ What are their names?

 _Jean:_ The black one is Pippin and the small one is Cat

 _Jeremy:_ Give them lots of pets from me!

 _Jean:_ okay.

 _Jeremy:_ Hey, tell me if I’m overstepping but are you feeling better?

Jean is saved from having to answer that question by Renee and Allison coming back carrying the pasta and three plates. Jean’s phone buzzes twice in his pocket, but he ignores it as he clears the table to make space for their dinner.

“It looks good,” Jean says.

“Thanks to you, I’ve been told,” Allison says as she cuts into the pasta.

Jean doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he stays quiet as Allison puts their dinner on their plates. When everyone is seated comfortably, Renee turns the movie back on, and Allison fills their half empty glasses with merlot again. The wine burns comfortably in Jean’s stomach as he drinks. The pasta tastes much better than the soup and garlic bread he’d been eating for the past three months and when they finish the movie and fall into comfortable conversation, Jean joins in without a second thought. When Allison refills his glass for a second time Jean doesn’t tell her to stop. Renee switches to water so she can drive Jean home again later that night.

The more alcohol enters Jean's system, the easier he finds it to talk, and soon he is pleasantly drunk while he and Allison discuss the theory of lizard people living among them. It’s so absolutely ridiculous, but it’s also a lot of fun. Jean insists it can’t be possible, but Allison rebuttals with strange theories she found online. By the end of their conversation Jean’s crying with laughter, he’s spilled red wine over his only white blouse and Renee can only barely convince Allison that pouring white wine over it won’t solve it. They end up giving him one of Renee’s sweaters for the rest of the night so he doesn’t have to walk around in a stained shirt, but Renee also ends up taking their wine away for the rest of the night.

-

Jean is unsteady on his feet as Renee walks him to the car. Allison stays in the door opening, equally unsteady, as she waves goodbye to Jean and tells him to come again soon. Jean nods eagerly, but it makes him dizzy so he quickly stops again. It takes a bit of struggling as Renee gets him into the seat beside her, but when he is seated Jean leans against the window and looks outside.

“I had fun,” he says, turning to face Renee as she gets in beside him.

Renee smiles as she starts the car, Jean rests his head against the window and closes his eyes. He attempts to drift off but the shaking of the car as they drive home makes it hard to fall asleep. When Renee softly turns on the radio he at least manages to relax a little. His head is spinning and he can feel exhaustion starting to replace the effects of the alcohol, or maybe exhaustion is an effect of drinking. It’s not like Jean would know, he has never been drunk before. It’s nice, the burn of the alcohol is comforting and his mind feels surprisingly numb, empty almost. It is only him, Renee and the music. Sometimes, other thoughts creep into his mind, but then the comfortable numbness settles in and Jean relaxes again, the bad thoughts forgotten in favour of song lyrics he will not remember the following morning.

“We’re here,” Renee says after some time. “Do you need help with getting home?”

Jean stretches out as much as he can in the car before shaking his head. He climbs out of the car and almost trips over the curb, but he manages to catch himself and flashes a smile at Renee. She doesn’t look entirely convinced by his act, but she stays in the car and watches as he makes his way to the front of his apartment complex. He fishes his keys out of his pocket, and after three tries, he unlocks the door and goes inside. The door falls shut behind him with a bang, and he is alone, standing in front of the stairs of his apartment complex.

The lights in the hallway downstairs haven’t worked since Jean moved in, and now in the middle of the night the hallway is so dark Jean can barely see the outline of the stairs. A sense of dread settles in his stomach, as if something bad is waiting for him at the top of the stairs. For a second the dread is so overwhelming, so frightening that Jean doesn’t move, until he shakes his head, as if to shake the bad thoughts out of his mind. He fumbles for his phone and turns on the torch, the stairs come to life before him and he climbs them one step at a time, slowly trudging up to the fifth floor as if he is trying to prevent the inevitable, though what that may be he doesn’t know. Jean is too old to be afraid of the dark, and yet, as he makes it to the top of the stairs he feels as though someone- something- is watching him from the bottom of the dark stairs. He turns around and shines his phone down the stairs, but there is nothing there except for the camera that doesn’t work.

“Espèce de lâche, ton imagination te joue des tours,” Jean mutters before unlocking the door.

His apartment is exactly the way he left it. His sweater is still haphazardly thrown over his couch, his dirty coffee cups are still in the sink, his book is still on the coffee table. The only thing missing is Annie. She isn’t in her usual spot on the window sill, she didn’t come running to him when he opened the door.

“Annie?” He whispers.

_Mreow?_

It comes from his bedroom and immediately Jean feels the worry evaporating. Annie was just sleeping, she was just in his bedroom and didn’t hear the door.

“You scared me, I thought you were gone,” Jean says.

_Mreow!_

Something tells Jean that he has to go to his bedroom now, he doesn’t know why but he feels as though something is still wrong. He throws his jacket over the chair in the corner and rushes into his bedroom to find Annie laying on his bed with five small kittens. For a second Jean just stands there, not understanding that Annie had given birth, until Annie lets out another distressed meow. It’s enough to make Jean move to the bed. He kneels in front of it and Annie picks up one of the kittens and drops it in front of Jean, but the little thing doesn’t move. Jean reaches out and Annie watches intently, expecting Jean to somehow fix the dead kitten, but there is nothing he can do. When he touches the kitten she is cold to the touch already. He looks at Annie, who nudges his hand and the little kitten and he begins to cry, softly at first, but then the tears start streaming down his face. He picks up Annie and holds her tightly while he sobs uncontrollably. Annie for her part stays put, nudging her head against Jean’s in a show of silent support. When he finally puts her down he’s still crying and with shaking hands he grabs his phone and calls Jeremy. He doesn’t even realise it’s almost 1 AM, until Jeremy picks up.

“Jean,” Jeremy’s speech sounds a little slurred, as if he just woke him up.

“I-“ Jean can’t get anything else past his lips, his eyes fall on the little kitten and he immediately starts to sob again.

“Hey, hey Jean. Jean, it’s gonna be okay. Where are you?” Jeremy asks, sounding more awake.

“H-Home,” Jean whispers. It takes him a few seconds to realise that Jeremy doesn’t know where he lives, so he forces himself to take a few deep breaths and calm down so he can give his address.

He can hear Jeremy getting dressed on the other side of the phone, he’s talking but Jean barely registers the words as anything other than a buzzing background noise. It isn’t until his doorbell rings that he realises he’s been sitting on the floor in the same position for twenty minutes. He can hear Jeremy telling him he’s there. He sounds worried as he asks Jean to open the door, but Jean doesn’t respond. Instead he moves his phone away from his ear and hangs up again. The same numbness he felt in the car overtakes him, but it’s painful now, it tears him apart from the inside, rips his heart apart to make place for more emptiness, more of that dull numbing ache.

He can barely convince himself to get up, but he can’t leave Jeremy standing outside, so he forces himself to stand and moves to the door to buzz Jeremy in. He’s half convinced that Jeremy has left until he hears a soft knocking on the door. He opens it to find Jeremy standing in front of him. His hair is a mess and he’s wearing a pair of glasses Jean has never seen before and he looks so normal, so calm in this mess that Jean has created around himself that it makes Jean cry again. He slumps against Jeremy, who holds him tightly and stops him from falling apart. Jeremy walks him to the couch and holds him against him until the tears stop falling from Jean’s face, he holds Jean and stops the numbness from tearing him apart.

“What happened?” Jeremy asks.

And it’s not funny, but it is, so Jean starts to laugh, because _what happened_? Everything happened, his life is a mess, he’s running from the mafia. He had seen enough people die at his own hands to trick himself into thinking he’d become immune to it. Yet here he is crying over a dead cat, over the mess he made himself.

“I have seen so many people die,” Jean whispers, his voice hoarse. He’s still smiling, but there is nothing kind about it. He reaches his hand up to wipe the sickening grin of his face, but he can’t manage. Instead, he buries his face deeper in the fabric of Jeremy’s sweater so he can’t see the look on his face.

“I have seen so many people die, but I just can’t get used to it,” he whispers.

He’s sure he’s scared Jeremy away now, but maybe that’s for the best. What kind of person breaks down like this in front of someone they have only known for a week? Except it feels like he’s known Jeremy for months. He feels so comfortable and safe around him, something Jean hasn’t felt since he was a little boy in his mothers arms, something he had lost the day he set foot on American soil. Jeremy doesn’t respond to what he says, but he doesn’t let go of Jean either. Instead he runs his fingers through Jean’s hair and stays. Jeremy stays, it is almost enough to make Jean cry again.

“My cat gave birth in my room, but one of the kittens died,” he whispers instead.

“Oh god… I’m so sorry, Jean,” Jeremy whispers, burying his face in Jean’s hair.

It feels nice to be held like that. It feels comfortable, and Jean doesn’t want to get up.

“Do you want me to get rid of the dead kitten?” Jeremy whispers.

Jean nods into Jeremy’s sweater, but neither of them move. The exhaustion comes creeping back, and Jean can feel himself slowly drifting off, but when he closes his eyes he sees the faces of people that died at his hands. He sees Riko and the kittens and it hurts, so Jean sits up and walks towards the kitchen. He makes himself a cup of coffee, while he watches Jeremy make his way to his bedroom. It takes a couple of minutes for him to come back, but when he does, he is holding a small box in which Jean assumes he put the dead kitten. Jean reaches out to take it, but Jeremy moves it from his reach. His eyes are gentle as he shakes his head, gently telling Jean to move away. He sidesteps and watches as Jeremy puts the box away so they can deal with it tomorrow.

“Stay,” Jean whispers.

Jeremy turns to face him, and for what feels like an eternity, they stare each other down. Jean doesn’t know what he’s looking for in Jeremy’s gaze, nor does he know what Jeremy is trying to see in him.

“Yeah, alright,” Jeremy says softly.

Jean doubts he’ll be able to sleep, but at least he won’t have to deal with his grief alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aye sorry for the angst in this chapter! The next will be slightly better (and uploaded after I had dinner)


	5. Nerium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am speed, here is chapter five exactly an hour after chapter four. (My dinner was macaroni btw. It was very nice)

**Nerium** /  _ Ne•ri•um  _ / be cautious

* * *

Jean doesn’t want to sleep in his own room, not even after Jeremy got rid of the dead kitten and put new covers over his bed. He ends up taking the guest room instead, while Jeremy takes his room. Jean’s glad he agreed to stay, he’s glad he isn’t completely alone. The shock has completely sobered him up, and the alcohol-induced haziness in his head has made place for a pounding headache, and memories climbing to the surface that Jean has tried to keep at bay for months. When he closes his eyes he’s back in the basement, then back in France, back to the family vacation they took to Spain, back to the places he doesn’t want to be. No matter how much exhaustion tugs at his mind, sleep refuses to come. Nothing is there to keep the memories at bay, so they drown Jean’s mind until all he can think about is the past.

-

_ The basement of the Moriyama estate consists of long hallways clad in darkness. They stretch on under the estate, twisting and twitching until you forget where you came from and how to return. Jean has learned how to identify the halls a long time ago. The basement is all he knows. He has only seen the halls above once, with the long windows that let in moonlight as he arrived in the dead of night. Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he can still vaguely remember what it looked like that night. Now he tries to find his way back there, to the big doors that lead to the stairs that take him back upstairs. He had agreed to meet with someone there, someone who had promised him a way out. He knows he is close because the hallways are becoming foreign to him, he tries to find identifying marks, a scratch on a wall, a brick that’s got a different pattern, wallpaper that’s chipped away, but he finds nothing. The walls are dark, an oppressing shadow that makes the halls feel smaller, like they’re pressing down on him. _

_ “Jean?” A voice whispers to his left. _

_ Jean turns, expecting to find the master there to punish him, but it is only Ryuji and Brendon. They’re in the same predicament as Jean, property of the Moriyamas. They share a room together close to the doors and they are Jean’s best shot at making it there. _

_ “What are you-“ Brendon starts, but Jean cuts him off with a shake of his head. _

_ “I need to find the doors,” He whispers, stepping closer to Ryuji and Brendon’s door, worried someone will hear them. _

_ Ryuji frowns, pokes his head out of the door, before pulling Jean inside and closing it behind him. _

_ “Whatcha need the doors for?” He asks. “You know trying to run is useless.” _

_ “I’m not running,” Jean says. He may trust them to lead him to the doors, but he doesn’t trust them not to run to the master and sell him out for a chance to make it up the stairs. _

_ “They’re not far. Just keep following the hall, then when you get to Susie’s room, go left,” Brendon says. “Her door has a silver handle, you’ll recognise it.” _

_ “Thanks.” _

_ Jean goes to turn back to the door, but before he can leave Brendon speaks up again. _

_ “Oh but Jean, do be careful. You aren’t the first who tried.” _

_ Jean swallows, his throat suddenly dry. It takes a lot of restraint to keep the nerves out of his voice, but years of practice has helped him perfect the trick. Riko wasn’t too happy with a gunman who couldn’t keep his voice in control. _

_ “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just taking a walk.” _

__

-

Jean turns his head towards the window, there is a soft breeze coming from the open window causing the curtain to flutter. He hasn’t allowed himself to think of Brendon and Ryuji in a while, he hopes they are alright. They risked their own safety, their own lives, to help him that day, and if anyone else had figured that out, they wouldn’t hesitate to sell them out to the master. He did try to put in a good word for the two of them with the FBI agent that had helped him escape, but whether they would be punished at all depended mostly on whether they would cooperate like Jean had decided to do, or if they would take the fall for the master. 

He hopes they were smart enough to decide for themselves, he hopes they are in some protection program just like him. Brendon and Ryuji never treated him terribly. They patched him up and hid food for him whenever they could get away with it. They were the closest thing to a friend Jean had at that place. Except for Kevin, but thinking of Kevin is too painful. His heart clenches in his chest as he remembers Kevin teaching him how to read when he was a child, remembers how Kevin told him stories of the outside. Jean closes his eyes tightly, trying to force the thoughts of the past away. Instead sleep comes to him, but sleep is not so kind. It brings with it dreams of the past, dreams of pain.

-

The morning comes as sudden as sleep did, the sounds of the street drifting in through the open windows. Jean shifts, pulling his blankets tighter around himself. He has no idea what time it is, doesn’t want to get out of bed and face the day, doesn’t want to have to take Annie to the vet. Down the hall he hears Jeremy waking up, soft murmurs of his voice carrying down the hall. He can’t understand any of it but he thinks he hears his name. After a while the murmuring stops, then he hears footsteps coming down the hall. They stop in front of his door, then there is silence again. It takes some time before Jeremy gently knocks.

“Jean?”

He stays quiet, waits for the footsteps to carry further down the hall, waits for Jeremy to leave his apartment. Except he doesn’t, he knocks one more time before entering the room. He stays in the doorway, as if he isn’t sure if he should come in and wake Jean.

“You awake?”

Jean turns around to face him without a word. Jeremy smiles at him and gives a little wave.

“I’m going to make us some breakfast. I’ll be done in twenty minutes.”

With that Jeremy leaves again.

Jean stays in bed for a little longer, then rolls out and grabs his clothes from the day before and pulls them on. It takes a second before he realises the shirt he’s wearing is Renee’s. He’ll make sure to clean it before tomorrow so he can take it back to work with him. He stands in front of the small mirror hanging on the wall, looking at his reflection and his hair which is sticking in every direction. He rakes a hand through it, trying to comb it down a little. His hair just sticks back up stubbornly, so Jean gives up and goes to the living room where he finds Jeremy setting everything up for breakfast. When Jean approaches, Jeremy looks up from what he’s doing.

“Morning sunshine.”

Jeremy looks at Jean’s hair and tries his very best to hide a smile. He reaches out for Jean, takes a strand of his hair and twirls it around his finger. Jean holds his breath, something bubbling in his stomach, something he doesn’t recognise. Then, Jeremy lets go, his hair springs back into disarray and the feeling is gone. For a few seconds they just stand there, close enough for Jean to reach out and touch Jeremy. His hand aches to reach out and cup his face, but then Jeremy steps away.

He feels a little disappointed as he watches Jeremy make his way to the kitchen to get their breakfast, leaving Jean alone in the living room with Annie and her four kittens. Jeremy had moved them to the living room the night before, claiming he was worried they would fall off the bed. Now they sit in a box, huddled together with Annie, who looks fiercely protective. Jean is surprised she even let Jeremy touch her babies, but maybe she had noticed how Jean had trusted him when he was vulnerable and decided he was worth trusting.

“Clever girl,” Jean mutters, reaching into the box to gently scratch Annie under her chin.

“We shouldn’t wait too long with taking them to the vet,” Jeremy says when he comes back and finds Jean by the box.

“No, we should not.”

Jeremy puts a plate of French toast on the table next to Jean, then sits cross legged on the couch to eat his own. Jean quietly watches him for a bit, before grabbing his own toast and sitting down in his reading chair. They eat in comfortable silence, only the tiny mewls from the kittens occasionally disturbing the quiet. Annie only really meows when she needs something from Jean, though usually what she needs is attention. It’ll be weird to have a chorus of kitten cries added to the sound of his apartment, the sound of home. He glances down at the tiny babies and realises he doesn’t mind.

“How are you gonna get to the vet?” Jeremy suddenly asks.

Jean turns back to Jeremy, who has finished his breakfast and is drumming his fingers on his knee with nothing left to do. Jean finds Jeremy is rarely ever still or quiet. He is always moving, always humming. Even when engrossed in a project he finds a way to move, a way to be in motion. It is so opposite to how Jean is, quiet, reserved, always making sure to go unnoticed. It’s refreshing, Jean likes the ambience Jeremy brings to his day to day life.

“I’ll just walk, I think.”

Jeremy shakes his head, his fingers going still on his knees. Jean doubts it’s for long. He finds himself looking at Jeremy’s hands, waiting for them to move again as he speaks.

“It’s pretty far from here. I can drive you.”

Jeremy gestures with his hands as he speaks, he is always in motion.

“Yeah, okay.”

Jean is always still, his hands resting on his lap, his posture uptight.

Jeremy smiles as he stands up, taking their empty plates to bring to the kitchen. “Then it’s settled! I’ll drive. You wanna leave after I clean these?”

“I can do it.”

“I don’t think that’s what I asked though, is it?” Jeremy asks with a shrug. “When do you want to leave?”

Jean stays quiet for a bit. He doesn't think this is an argument he can win, so he resigns himself to the fact that Jeremy is going to wash his dishes for him.

“Ten minutes?”

Jeremy nods and takes his dishes to the kitchen, leaving Jean alone again in his chair with his cats. He wants to take Annie out of the box and put her on his lap, but he worries that doing so will hurt or upset here, so he leaves her where she is and instead takes out his phone to text Renee.

_ Jean:  _ Annie gave birth

_ Jean:  _ **One image attached**

_ Renee:  _ Congratulations. Are they healthy?

_ Jean:  _ One of them died. Taking them to the vet today to get them checked.

_ Renee:  _ Oh I’m sorry to hear.

_ Renee: _ You okay?

_ Jean:  _ I think. Jeremy is here.

Before Renee can send a reply, Jeremy returns from the kitchen.

“You ready?” He asks.

Jean puts his phone in his pocket and picks up the box. Annie gives a startled meow, which is followed by a look of betrayal. Jean looks away and follows Jeremy out of the apartment. He makes Jeremy lock the door behind him, and then they are going down the stairs together, Jeremy occasionally telling him to mind the steps. In the morning the hallways are filled with the light from outside, a stark contrast to the darkness the night brings. Jean looks overhead to the lamps and finds that some of them don’t even have lightbulbs in them anymore.

He likes the apartment complex he lives in, but his landlord never fixes the issues no matter how often they send emails to complain. He wonders what it would take for his landlord to finally fix the lights. Probably someone breaking their neck as they tumble down the stairs. Jean just hopes that person won't be him, especially now. 

They make it outside soon enough. Annie looks up from the box when she realises Jean has taken her outside. She meows loudly, almost angrily.

“I’m taking you back home, don’t worry,” Jean whispers, quietly enough that Jeremy can’t hear.

Jeremy’s car is parked a little further down the block, and on their way they pass a black car. Inside, there is a man talking on his phone. When their eyes meet, Jean feels a chill down his spine. Something in him forces him to turn away. When he first came to San Diego he responded that way to anyone who seemed to notice him in fear of having been followed, but if he had been compromised, his marshal would have called. Over the weeks, that fear had slowly ebbed away, but Jean guesses the shock from yesterday has brought some of that fear back, some of the nerves of his past. He looks back one more time, but the man is still on the phone, staring ahead.

They reach Jeremy’s car, a yellow sedan. It looks old and a little beaten, but when Jeremy catches his concerned look he makes sure to reassure Jean that it still works. He also adds that he should ignore the rattling sound he hears when he switches gears sometimes, so Jean isn’t entirely convinced. He gets into the passenger seat and puts the box on his lap, gently petting Annie as he stares out of the window while Jeremy drives off towards the vet. While they drive, Jean’s phone buzzes in his pocket, alerting him of a message.

-

__

_ It’s still quiet upstairs, but Jean knows it won't take long before the FBI will begin the raid on the mansion. They had warned Jean not to be anywhere near the master, to make sure he wasn’t near the front doors. Jean didn’t tell them that he hadn’t seen the hallway in years, that even if he tried to imagine the way the front doors looked, his mind always came up blank. Instead he sits in his room, staring at the small table next to his bed. He’s supposed to go to work soon. It won’t be long before Riko will come to find him and take him to one of the other rooms. Jean quietly hopes that the FBI will arrive before Riko does. _

-

The vet is a small building on the other side of town. The AC inside is busted. The room is filled with constant complaining about the heat. Even Jeremy has begun to shift constantly in his seat, sweat beading on his forehead. Jean stares blankly ahead at a poster about worms. He has read it twenty times, but it’s the only thing he can do to calm his nerves. It feels like forever before the woman at the desk finally calls out his last name, and he quickly stands, leaving Jeremy behind. Jean realises he’d never told Jeremy his last name. Behind him he hears Jeremy scramble to his feet to follow Jean to the front desk.

“Hello Jean,” The woman smiles.

Jean doesn’t know her, he’s never seen her before. He doesn’t like that she acts like they’ve met, though he knows it's her job.

“Hi,” her name is printed on her name tag, but Jean doesn’t bother to use it. “My cat gave birth. One… One of the kittens died, so I want to make sure she and the kittens are healthy.”

They are taken to a small office where they wait for someone to check up on them. There are two chairs in the corner, and Jean knows he should just sit and wait, but instead he paces the small room while Jeremy holds the box with cats. Occasionally, Annie pokes her head out of it, meows at Jean, and then lays down with her babies again. It would be endearing if Jean wasn’t so goddamn worried.

Finally, a woman comes in and takes the cats from Jeremy. Jean takes a seat next to him, and Jeremy gives him an encouraging smile. Jean can barely muster one back. He’s pretty sure it looks weird anyway, so he turns back to watch the woman doing check-ups on the cats. Annie loudly complains about it all, but when the woman finishes up with her, she gives her treats. Which was apparently all it took to get her to calm down. She does the same tests on the kittens.

“They’re all good,” she says with a smile when she’s finished up.

“Oh thank god,” Jean whispers.

The woman smiles and goes on to talk about some caretaking tips, but barely anything registers in Jean’s mind. He’s so tired from the events of the night before, so tired from the loss of the small kitten. Besides him, he can hear Jeremy answering some of the woman’s questions. Jean is suddenly very grateful that he took him along. Finally she gives them a small brochure with information on how to take care of the kittens, then Jean is leaving the room with his box of cats. He pays for the check-up at the counter, and then they’re out of the vet again. Jeremy guides him back to the car, unlocking the back door so Jean can put the box on the backseat.

“So, what are you gonna do with the kittens?”

Jean looks back to the box, all of them are sleeping soundly now. He knows he can’t take care of all these cats forever, but it feels somewhat wrong to separate them from Annie.

“I guess I should find someone who wants kittens,” Jean says, but even he can hear the reluctance in his voice.

“Hey, if you’re worried they’ll fall into the wrong hands, I can help you find good cat parents,” Jeremy promises.

Jean turns to face him, and he looks so earnest, so genuine and determined it makes Jean’s heart clench. There is something about Jeremy that allowed him to destroy all the walls Jean has put up around himself in so little time. Maybe it is the knowledge that Jean won’t be here for much longer, maybe it’s that bit of defiance against Riko. Maybe it is just something that’s meant to be. Jean never believed much in fate. He never believed much in anything despite being raised in a catholic household, but now Jean starts to think he might have been wrong not to believe. Jeremy is like the sun and Jean is the cold and the snow, desperate to stay, desperate to see the early sunrise. Instead, he melts away in the heat and Jean can’t think of a better way to disappear than this.

“Thank you,” Jean says.

_ Thank you for breaking away my walls, thank you for being there for me. Thank you for all the things I cannot say out loud. _

He has a feeling Jeremy knows, though.

They drive off together, Jean rolling down the window to let in some fresh air while Jeremy turns on the radio. He doesn’t recognise the song, but it makes him feel happy. It’s one of those songs where you can imagine what summer will be like, where you can feel the heat of the sun on your skin, even though it is the middle of the night. His phone buzzes again in his pocket, alerting him of a second message. He had forgotten to check the one he had gotten when he went to the vet, but now that he knows that Annie isn’t in danger, he finally takes it out. Immediately the sense of dread returns, because the messages aren’t from Renee, they are from Riko.

One of them is an image of Jean’s flower shop. The second is an image of Jean walking down the street by himself. Judging from what he’s wearing in the picture, it had been taken about a month ago. Riko has found his store, has found the city where he lives. It will only be a matter of days before he finds out where Jean lives. He can’t do anything but stare at the messages, not sure how to respond. Riko starts typing again and Jean can feel his heart trying to escape from his chest. He wants to close his phone, he wants to throw it out the window and run far far away from here. What scares him more is that there is a part of him that wants to stay. There is a part of him that knows that going back now is a lesser punishment, a quicker death, the easy way out. He’s frozen in place, in a car that is driving him back to the place where he knows death awaits him. He wants nothing more than to pull on the steering wheel and tell Jeremy to take him away from here. He doesn’t, instead he watches Riko send him another message.

_ Riko:  _ Found you. Did you really think you could hide from me?

Jean closes his phone and puts a hand on Jeremy’s arm, it takes everything in him to stop it from shaking.

“Let’s go to your place,” he says, hoping the slight tremble in his voice can be chalked up to the visit to the vet.

Jeremy doesn’t say a word, but takes the next turn away from Jean’s apartment and he feels himself relax. He won’t be any safer at Jeremy’s than he would be at his own place, but Riko only knows where his flower shop is located. At least, Jean hopes that’s the only thing he knows. Moving between houses can only buy him so much time. It won’t keep Riko from finding him. His safest option is to call his marshall and let her know he’s been compromised, and although that option is safe, although that option is wise, Jean knows he won’t do it. Riko has found the town where he lives. He has found his shop, but he hasn’t found Jean, and for the first time since he was a child, Jean has something he wants to keep.

He has something worth fighting for, he has Jeremy, he has Renee and Nicky and he has Annie and her kittens. He has dinner parties at Allison and Renee’s, he has so many stories from Mr Martinez about his wife and their travels he hasn’t heard yet. Jean has found something that closely resembles a home, and that thought is scary, but it’s also exhilarating and it will be worth whatever Riko has in store when he finds him. So he deletes the text from Riko, sits back in his seat and watches the scenery change outside the window.

-

Jeremy lives in a modest apartment that he shares with his old teammates from college. Jeremy tells him he used to play lacrosse, and Jean listens as Alvarez regales him with stories of their games. Laila offers him tea when Alvarez turns away to ask Jeremy a question, and she smiles knowingly when Jean nods eagerly.

“She’s a bit much sometimes, but she is a good person,” Laila promises, before turning to the kitchen.

“Oh, Laila,” Jeremy goes after her and then Jean is alone with Alvarez.

Although Jean feels surprisingly welcome at the apartment, as if he has been a lifelong friend of the girls too, he still can’t think of much to say to Alvarez, who regards him with thinly veiled interest. The box of cats sits at his feet, but Annie has hopped out as if she needed a break from parenting, and explored the apartment, leaving Jean to babysit her kids. They are all asleep now and Jean takes some comfort in the fact that they bring something of his to a place that is so vividly Jeremy’s. The mismatched furniture, the dead plants on the windowsill, the plants he got from Jean still alive on every other surface Jeremy thought to put them. It makes him happy to see Jeremy has kept them alive, it makes something flutter in his stomach, the same strange feeling he felt when Jeremy played with his hair.

“Nice plants, huh?” Alvarez asks, clearly anxious to start a conversation again.

“Yes, I gave him those plants.”

Alvarez looks at the Chinese lanterns on the bookcase, their strings so long they almost touch the floor now, then turns back to Jean. Something changed in her gaze, something Jean can’t place and it makes him a bit anxious. Maybe he made a mistake, maybe these people work for Riko and he walked himself into a trap, but then Laila and Jeremy return from the kitchen and the feeling fades away.

“Catch,” Jeremy says.

He tosses him a small bag of candy. The label reads warheads and the package is in obnoxious bright colours. Jean has never seen them before. They weren’t in the small bag of different candy Jeremy brought to his store before, these are new. He looks up from the bag to Jeremy, who is watching him with a smile, a different smile than he usually wears. It’s eager, he is waiting for Jean to taste the candy. He reaches into the bag, takes a piece out of it’s wrapper and pops it into his mouth. It’s incredibly sour, it tastes of lemon and Jean makes a disgusted face. Even after he swallows the piece of candy the flavour lingers. He turns to Jeremy with a frown, a look of betrayal on his face. Jeremy and the girls start to laugh and Jean turns away, mostly because if he looks at Jeremy he’ll see his frown melting away.

“I hate you. I’m going back home,” Jean says.

Jeremy laughs harder, gently placing a hand on his shoulder and pulling him in his direction. Jean tries not to follow, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight to stop Jeremy from pulling him next to him. Jean turns to face him, trying to keep his frown in place, but Jeremy’s cheerful grin is quite powerful, and so Jean finds himself rolling his eyes with a half-smile on his face instead.

“Sorry, but I promised to buy you different candy. I was just sticking to my promise!”

“Sure you were,” Jean says.

Jeremy gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze before letting go of him. Laila hands him his tea and sits down next to her wife, who puts her arm around her. It reminds him a little of Allison and Renee and their easiness around each other. Jean had never had much exposure to married people, other than his own parents, but they didn’t marry out of love. They married out of necessity. His mother may have loved his father, but his father saw a chance to inherit a vast Italian crime syndicate by marrying their eldest daughter. He saw a chance at future heirs and he took it. Where his mother was driven by love, his father was driven by power and control.

When he looks at Laila and Alvarez, when he thinks of Renee and Allison, he thinks this is what it means to be loved and understood. When he looks at Jeremy, he feels a spark of wanting that he never felt before, except for when he used to lay in bed and dream of the stars. It’s stupid, he didn’t realise he was falling for Jeremy until he was on the floor. Jean is in love and he is dying. It’s stupid and it is unfair, but that doesn’t make him want it any less. Like a dying man gasping for his last breath, Jean realises he longs for what his mother could never have.

“Well Jean, it was nice meeting you, but Alvarez and I have somewhere to be,” Laila suddenly says.

Alvarez looks at her wife. “We do?”

Laila nods but doesn’t elaborate. Alvarez turns to Jeremy as if he might know where they are supposed to be, but he only shrugs. Laila stands up and waits for her wife to follow. Alvarez gives them one last confused look before getting up and going after Laila. As they say goodbye, Laila tells Jean she hopes to see him again soon and Jean feels guilty as he says he’d love to. Who knew dying would leave you with so much guilt, with so much pain, with so many people to leave behind as you walk towards the end.

“You okay?” Jeremy asks, standing close to Jean, hand reaching out to touch him and Jean wants it so badly. He wants Jeremy so badly, but he is afraid, so instead, he walks towards the couch and leaves Jeremy standing by the door, uncertain and worried.

“Just tired. It was a long day,” Jean lies.

Jeremy hums and sits down on the chair opposite of him, instead of right next to him like he did when the girls were still here. The distance feels so vast, so wide, it makes Jean feel alone and cold, even though he is in a warm apartment with someone else.

“You know,” Jeremy begins. He waits for Jean to pay attention to him, and when Jean realises it, he looks up to find Jeremy smiling at him. Calm and patient, understanding and caring, it’s almost as unnerving as Renee’s knowing gaze. He feels like Jeremy is staring right through him, as if he sees everything that’s on his mind, and it makes Jean shivers. He feels like Jeremy is about to tell him he knows what’s going on. He doesn’t, those words never come, instead Jeremy says, “When I feel that way, I like to cook. It’s almost dinner time, so, wanna help me?”

Jean looks at the clock on the wall, it’s almost 7 PM,  _ time flies when you have fun, _ Nicky always tells him. He used to think that was bullshit, but maybe Nicky was right. Jean’s stomach decides to pick that moment to growl in hunger.

“Yeah, okay. I don’t really know how to cook, though.”

Jeremy shrugs. “That’s fine, I’ll teach you.”

Jean gets up and follows Jeremy to the kitchen, where they grab pots and pans and ingredients to cook a dish Jean has never heard of before. It’s different from cooking with Renee. He feels more in sync with Jeremy as they move around the kitchen. It almost feels like an intricate dance rather than cooking, where they complete each other, where somehow Jean knows what Jeremy is going to ask him before he asks. In no time they have dinner ready for the two of them, and Jean feels proud, feels like he accomplished something by helping Jeremy out.

They sit down in the living room to watch TV and eat dinner together. This time, Jeremy sits next to Jean on the couch again, their legs touching. Even though there is enough space for both of them to move, neither of them do. Jean feels like he’s on fire, but he eats without acknowledging it. Next to him, Jeremy does the same.

“Jeremy,” Jean turns to him, they are closer than he thought they would be. He can see the freckles on his skin. He wants to reach out and trace constellations on them.

“Mhm?”

“Let me take you out to coffee, as a thank you.”

Jeremy smiles. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know, but I want to.”

Jean turns his attention back to the TV, but he’s only half aware of the show playing. He can still feel Jeremy’s gaze on him, can feel the way it burns. He wants to turn back to Jeremy, wants to ask him out on a date instead of taking him out with the weak excuse of thanking him for helping with Annie, but he can’t do it. It wouldn’t be fair, for neither of them.

“Okay,” Jeremy says at long last, turning back to the TV as well. “Coffee it is.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright tomorrow I got a lab class but I'll try my best to post chapter 6 before 12 AM tomorrow. If not you know the drill, two chapters on tuesday.


	6. Rainflowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oop we are almost done! Just two more chapters and then a small epilogue and then this fic is already done. Feels weird, anyway enjoy this chapter

**Rainflowers (rain lilies)** /  _ rein•flow•uhz  _ / I love you too

* * *

Jean doesn’t stay for long past dinner, and although he insists on walking home, Jeremy follows him outside with his car keys jangling in his pocket. Jean has come to realise Jeremy’s kindness knows no bounds, so he gets into the passenger seat with as little complaining as he can. What little complaints do make it past his lips fall on deaf ears. Jeremy starts the car and drives off without even acknowledging Jean’s  _ It’s just a 15 minute walk _ . Jean watches through the window until he recognises the road again.

“Wait, can we swing past my store?” Jean asks quietly.

Jeremy raises an eyebrow but doesn’t protest as he takes a left turn into the street that leads to the busy streets. It is late, but down here the city doesn’t seem to sleep, even with so many stores closing down for the day. The clubs are just opening further downtown, and the liquor stores know how to lure in customers for cheaper drinks that get them drunk before they even set foot inside the clubs. Jean watches as they slow down and get mixed up with traffic. Outside the car people laugh and joke. A young woman holds her boyfriend’s hand tightly in hers, she laughs and he bends down to kiss her cheek. Jean turns to look at Jeremy who’s got one arm resting on the windowsill, head leisurely resting in his hand as he waits for the cars to move. He drums a tune on his steering wheel, never resting, never still, unlike Jean.

“Guess we picked the wrong hour to come down here,” Jeremy says, both hands returning to the steering wheel as the cars in front of them begin to crawl.

“Sorry,” Jean says.

“Eh, I got nowhere to be,” Jeremy dismisses.

Jean has everywhere to be but here, out in the open where Riko will be able to find him, but Jean doesn’t tell Jeremy that.

It takes them a little while longer before they reach Jean’s store, and Jeremy parks half on the sidewalk. Jean unbuckles his seatbelt and gestures for Jeremy to stay seated as he leaves the car and heads inside. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, doesn’t really know why he asked Jeremy to take him here in the first place. Maybe he just needed one last look before he lost it all. His heart aches when he realises that the shop will probably never open up again, all the flowers inside left to wilt. He doesn’t want to give this up, this shop he fought so hard to keep. The place where he met Renee, where he was first introduced to Nicky, who managed to become a very unlikely friend of his.

He doesn’t know what to take with him so he can remember, and he doesn’t know what to leave behind to make sure his friends never forget. He just stands in the front of the shop until he feels a pair of eyes burning into his back. Jeremy is watching him, and Jean doesn’t want him to figure out something is wrong, so he steps inside and looks around, just to take it all in one last time. A splash of white in the corner of his eyes catches his attention, a pot of rain lilies stands solemnly among a bunch of brightly coloured hyacinths. Jean reaches for the flowers, fingers brushing past the pedals. He’s always been a fan of rain lilies. They’re solemn but beautiful. Vibrant, then dull in death. It’s how Jean wants to be remembered after he is gone.

He picks up the plant and takes it back to the car. Jeremy frowns when Jean shoves it into his hands.

“Here, I didn’t give you flowers for the Warheads.”

“Jean-“ Jeremy starts, but Jean cuts him off with a shake of his head.

“Just take the damn flowers, Jeremy.”

Jeremy puts them in the back without a word but keeps the car on the sidewalk. It isn’t until Jeremy gently tugs on his own seatbelt that Jean realises he won’t drive off until Jean puts his seatbelt on. He mutters a quick apology, then fastens his seatbelt and Jeremy drives off. The rest of the drive is quiet again, except for the radio playing and Jeremy occasionally drumming along on his steering wheel. Jean watches him from the corner of his eye, but Jeremy remains focused on the road.

They reach Jean’s apartment complex soon enough, and he is surprised to find the streets completely empty. He had half expected Riko to be sitting on the front steps, or to see a black car similar to the one he saw this morning, but apparently that really had been just some random guy in a black car. Maybe Riko hasn’t found out where he lives yet, maybe Jean can still survive the remainder of his month here.

“Jean?” Jeremy turns in his seat, facing Jean.

Jean quietly waits for him to continue while Jeremy waits for a response. It takes Jeremy a couple seconds to realise Jean won’t speak until he does, and then he is drumming his fingers again. Jeremy, always moving, never still, restless. Jean, always still, always fixed in place, unmoving.

“Are you okay?” Jeremy asks.

“Yes,” Jean says, too fast, too eager. A clear lie.

Jeremy doesn’t press. He turns the other direction as Jean gets out of the car. For a second Jean stands there, the car door in his hand, eyes focused on Jeremy. Then he closes the door and heads to his apartment, box of cats in his hand. Annie sticks her head out, looking back at Jeremy’s car. Jean hears it drive away, but he doesn’t turn to watch it leave.

-

Jean isn’t supposed to go to the store the next day, but he wants to swing by to check up on Renee. It’s raining when Jean leaves the apartment complex, the sky dark as water pours down. There are storms coming according to the news Jean had barely listened to in the morning, unusual for this time of year, but they expected mostly rain and strong winds. Jean had brought an umbrella, but the strong winds pulls hard. The umbrella can only withstand so much, and soon it breaks. Jean tosses it in the first garbage bin he finds and lets the rain soak him as he walks into town. Normally, Jean doesn’t mind the twenty minute walk to work, but now as the heavy rain tears through his jacket, letting cold seep into his bones. By the time he reaches his shop he is soaked and shivering. Inside, the heating is on, but it does very little to warm him up.

Renee is sitting behind the counter and gives a sympathetic smile as Jean tracks water into the shop. He could have just given Renee a call, but now he’s here, so he goes to the small kitchen and sets coffee for him and Renee. She goes into the back and manages to find a blanket, which she hands to Jean. He gratefully takes it and wraps it around himself, warmth already slowly returning along with the feelings in his legs.

“I didn’t expect you today,” Renee says as she takes a coffee mug from Jean.

Jean wraps both hands around the steaming mug, sitting down at the small table so he and Renee can both see the counter in case someone comes into the store despite the heavy rain. It’s too hot to drink, but he brings the mug up to his face anyway, pressing it against his lips, steam curling up to warm his face.

“I wanted to check up on you, speak to you,” Jean says.

The shop and Jean’s absence has been weighing heavily on his mind since the night before. He doesn’t want the store to close. He likes the idea of something of him surviving after he disappears. He wants the shop to stay, but it’s registered to his name and if he disappears, the building they are in will be sold to the highest bidder. The only way to stop it is to put Renee’s name on the lease. He had given it much thought, but he realises the idea of signing ownership over to Renee wouldn’t hurt him as much as he had thought it would. There is no one else who he trusts more than Renee to take care of his shop when he is gone, to keep that little bit of Jean and tend to it so he won’t be forgotten.

“I want to sign ownership of the shop over to you,” Jean says.

Renee says nothing for a while. Instead, she sips on her coffee, eyes focused on something behind Jean. She is pondering it over, but Jean knows she won’t say no. Even if it would take some convincing from his part, Renee would understand and tend to the store. She had always understood Jean before, he had trusted Renee when he trusted no one else. He expects Renee to understand, but when she finally meets Jean’s eyes he is met with a different Renee. She gives him a look he has never seen before, a look that reminds him of the men he saw in the long halls of the basement everyday of his life. The look of someone who has fought to survive.

“What are you running from?” Renee asks.

“My past,” Jean replies without missing a beat.

If someone deserves the truth it should be Renee. He had expected it to be harder to open up to her, to anyone for that matter, but the fleeting panic he had expected remains at bay. He feels safe, which is not something Jean had ever associated with the basement he lived in, with the stories that came with them, but as they fall from his mouth he feels a weight being lifted from his shoulders. These are no longer Jean’s burdens to bear, they are no longer his secrets. He shares them with Renee now, who will keep them safe, who will understand and who will listen. Jean tells as much as he can, the punishment, the darkness, the longing to escape, but he keeps out names and other details that can put Renee or the investigation into jeopardy. He never tells her about his maman, the only light he had down there. That is something for Jean to keep, the few fleeting moments where things were good, where Jean felt safe, before his father gave him to Riko.

When he is done talking Renee is still there, sitting quietly with her coffee mug in her hands. It’s gone cold now, but when Jean finishes talking she brings it up to her mouth and drinks anyway. When it’s empty, she collects Jean’s mug and goes to set a new batch of coffee. She is giving Jean time to collect himself, to return to the walls he had built to keep people from finding out about the truth. Jean doesn’t rebuild them, leaves them broken on the floor. He’s done running now, he’s done hiding. Renee doesn’t know that Riko has found him yet, she doesn’t know how long Jean has left, but Jean is done letting fear control his life.

While Renee makes a new batch, Jean tells her not to make him any coffee. Instead he takes out his phone to text Jeremy. He’d rather have coffee with Jeremy, just the two of them at the small café down the street.

-

_ I like you too _ . The meaning of a rain lily is  _ I like you too _ . Jeremy is completely utterly convinced he has been asked out on a date when he sees the meaning glaring back to him on the Wikipedia page. The flowers that Jean had given him are all stored in his bedroom, most of them growing steadily, flowers blooming. His heart beats faster when he sees them. The rain lily is different, the soft white petals, special, it had convinced Jeremy to look up what the flower represented.

“ALVAREZ!” He calls out.

She’s in his bedroom in a minute, Laila on her heels. Jeremy moves to the side so they can see his laptop screen, which is still opened on the Wikipedia article about plant symbolism.

“Wait,” she says, when she looks from the picture of the rain lilies to the one on Jeremy’s desk.

“You sure?” Laila asks, reading Jeremy’s mind.

Just then his phone buzzes in his pocket, there is a message from Jean blinking on his screen.

**Jean:** _ You want to get that coffee today? I want to see you again. _

Jeremy turns his phone to Laila and Alvarez with a big grin on his face, before sending Jean a text back that says he would love to get that coffee today. Jeremy had always been a bit quick to crush on people, a beautiful stranger on the streets, a guy in the library reading poetry, a girl on the subway with her eyes closed listening to her music. Jeremy saw beautiful people all around him, people that caught his eyes, but Jean was one of the few where the feelings didn’t fade as quickly as they came.

The more time they spend together—the more Jeremy learns about Jean and his mannerisms—the stronger Jeremy's feelings become. He began to look forward to his breaks where he could hang out in Jean’s store under the guise of the flowers Jean gave him every day. He just hadn’t thought Jean felt the same. For as close as Jean let him come, he also seemed to always keep him at arm’s length as well. Jean was careful, everything he said was calculated, if things didn’t have to be said, Jean never said them. Where Jeremy was impulsive, rash and always fidgeting, Jean was thoughtful, composed and quiet.

“He asked me on a date,” Jeremy says.

They agree to meet at four at Heartstop coffeeshop, a small shop downtown that recently opened. Jeremy had wanted to go ever since it opened, but it always felt a bit lame to go alone. Jeremy felt somewhat giddy to be going there together with Jean. It had been a while since he last went on a date, but he is more excited than nervous. Moving around Jean had been easy. They slipped into a comfortable friendship so fast that Jeremy found it hard to believe that they had only known each other for such a short period of time. It was exhilarating. Frightening but in a good way.

It’s still too early for Jeremy to go downtown to Heartstop so instead, he opens his closet to find clothes to change into. It’ll be cold outside. The rain has temporarily seized, but the strong wind still rattles the windows of Jeremy’s apartment. He wants to choose comfort over style, an easy and probably sensible decision considering the weather, but he wants to look good for this first date as well. He ends up just settling for a combination of both with a thick red and golden sweater and a simple pair of jeans. The sweater is from his college time, the lettering peeling and fading on some places. Well worn, but kept with love and fondness of the memories he made at college. Alvarez and Laila have similar sweaters. They met in college, the three of them having the same eight am class. Jeremy had shown up late and the only seat that was left was with the girls. His tardiness that morning resulted in a strong friendship and an apartment shared with them off campus.

The girls had returned to the living room and Jeremy is quick to join them, hoping to pass the time. He’s nervous, excited, he wants nothing more than to go to Heartstop and see Jean, but he has to wait two more hours. He’s bubbling with excitement, constantly checking his phone for the time until Alvarez takes it from his hands.

“Calm down Jere,” she says with a laugh.

“I’m just so excited, I can’t help it. Should I bring him flowers?”

“I have a better idea,” Laila says.

She gets up from the couch and goes to the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets until she finds what she’s looking for. Some more rummaging in the kitchen and then she returns with a little gift bag of different types of candies, most of which Jeremy had already given to Jean, some of which he hadn’t yet. There are no warheads in the bag, but Jeremy doubts Jean likes them that much. Laila tosses him the bag and Jeremy catches it. All the flavours in the bag have pink and red colour schemes. Normally you give someone red roses when you like them, so why not give them red candy. Jeremy thinks it’s pretty clever.

“Thanks, you are seriously the best,” he says with a smile.

Laila hums and sits down with him again, They lapse into a comfortable conversation and the time passes quickly. Before Jeremy knows it, it’s time to go to Heartstop. He says goodbye to Laila and Alvarez and puts on his coat. He considers taking an umbrella, the dark clouds overhead forebode rainfall, but it’s currently dry and it shouldn’t be too far from his place to the coffeeshop. The weather forecast had predicted that the most heavy rainfall would be over by now anyway, so even if he would get caught up in the rain it wouldn’t be enough to soak him.

He steps outside of the apartment, walking down the hall to the elevator. The nerves from earlier return. Jeremy is giddy with anticipation as he steps into the elevator and presses the button down. He can barely stand still, rocking on the balls of his feet. The elevator ride down isn’t that long, soon he is downstairs. He opens the doors that lead outside. A gust of wind tries to steal the door from Jeremy’s hands, but he holds on tight, pushes the door closed and then he is out in the open. He closes his eyes for a few seconds, just enjoying the feel of the strong winds trying to tug Jeremy along, then he turns and walks onto the street.

One step, two steps, down the sidewalk into town. One step, two steps, in the distance he sees the shops. Jean’s flower shop is closed when he passes it. A man is standing in front of the door, tugging on a handle that doesn’t give. Jeremy recognises him as the regular that always buys roses for his wife, watches him as he walks back to his car. Jeremy finds it a little odd that Jean closed up shop early, that he didn’t ask Renee to keep looking after it, but the excitement of his date drowns the worries out almost instantly. Jean was just as excited, he forgot to ask Renee to open up, jeremy tells himself. Still, the image of the man tugging on a door that wouldn’t give rests uncomfortably in the back of his head as he reaches the coffee shop where they agreed to meet.

One look inside tells Jeremy that Jean isn’t there yet, so he stands close to the exit under the little roof, protecting himself from the soft drizzle that has slowly started falling. Drizzle is worse than rain, rain soaks into your clothes immediately, but drizzle is slow, the cold seeping into your bones. You don’t notice it until you are freezing, until you are numb all over. Jeremy hides from the drizzle, hands in his pocket, wrapped around the little bag of candy. He looks down the street, figures with umbrellas and raincoats line the sidewalks, cars splashing those that get too close as they drive through puddles. The streets slowly meddle out as the drizzle turns to rain, people taking the car if they bother going out at all.

Jeremy looks out into the street, but he doesn’t see Jean’s tall figure anyway. He doesn’t want to worry, the weather is bad, maybe Jean is waiting for it to clear up. He takes out his phone to see if Jean has texted him, but the only message he has is from Laila telling him good luck and have fun. As he reads the message another pops up to inform him she has taken Alvarez to go see her parents, so he has the apartment all to himself. He tries not to worry, waits a few more minutes, watches the clock tick by. Five past four, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, no text from Jean. Finally Jeremy decides to just text Jean himself.

**Jeremy:** _ Hey, you okay? _

**Error, number unavailable** flashes on his screen. Jeremy blinks at the little message, then he calls Jean.

A dial tone, a mechanic voice telling him  _ the number you have dialled is not in service at this time. Please check to see if you have dialed the number correctly. If you feel you have received this message in error ple- _

Jeremy hangs up the phone, dials again.  _ The number you have- _

Hang up the phone, call again.  _ The number you have- _

Hang up the phone, call again, checking twice if this is Jean’s number _ , _ but there are so many text messages in their history, there is a call from Jean from when his cat gave birth and  _ the number you have dialled is not in service at this time. _

And then the sky breaks open, rain pours down so loudly Jeremy can feel it. Behind him he hears the door to the café open, someone probably coming out to ask if he wants to come in, but Jeremy begins to walk away before they can ask. He grabs earbuds from his pocket, putting them in to blare music. Rain mixing with tears on his face, the candy in his pocket suddenly feels heavy, feels wrong, like it’s burning a hole through his pocket and into his sides. Jeremy doesn’t understand why Jean would ask him out just to leave him, just to block his number and let him stand outside, alone, in front of the shop like a fool. Back when Jeremy was fourteen he had been asked on a date by a boy, it was his first date ever, and he had been so excited, only to find him with all his friends, only to be mocked. This is nothing like that, but it hurts just as much. Jeremy had thought that at the very least Jean and he were friends, that at the very least he had cared for him.

“Clearly I was wrong,” Jeremy whispers to himself.

He laughs—bitterly, painfully—and he cries. He arrives home, opens the door and slips into the elevator. His neighbour is standing next to him, Jeremy stares resolutely forward as he furiously blinks tears away from his eyes. As the doors open on his floor, he hears his neighbour start to speak to him, but before he can hear it Jeremy is walking. He opens the door, finds the restraint to stop himself from slamming it shut, but it’s a close call. The lights are off, the apartment is quiet. It’s too big, too dark, too quiet, and Jeremy is too alone. He stares out into the dark room, then switches the lights on and sees all the flowers Jean had given him.

On the heels of grief lies anger. An overwhelming, burning anger that swells up in Jeremy’s chest until it aches, until it burns, until the only way to get it out is to yell. Salty tears stream down his face, he wipes them all away and goes into the kitchen, throwing open a drawer and grabbing a garbage bag. He goes to the living room, grabs the Bromelia from the bookshelf and throws it away, grabs the Gladiolus and Snapdragons he had in a vase. They are still blooming but they too go in the garbage bag, along with the mandevilla and every other stupid plant Jean had given and sold him. The room is suddenly empty, the colour of the plants is gone. It feels like he drained the apartment and it hurts, but Jeremy is too stubborn to admit that the hurt comes from missing Jean and his presence, so he pretends it’s pain from being stood up. It’s easy, they’re the same thing anyway. He walks back to the kitchen to throw the bag away, but then he turns and there through the open door of his bedroom he sees the rain lilies. He drops the garbage bag, looks at the white petals of the flower.

_ Rain lilies mean I love you too _

Rain lilies mean nothing, they are just pretty flowers and empty words. He goes into his room, grabs the pot, but he can’t bring himself to throw them out just yet. Something stops him from getting rid of them completely, so he sets them out on the balcony.

_ Rain lilies grow after hard rainfall, though they don’t tend to thrive in soggy soil. Rain flowers signify the beginning of spring, the end of the dark period. How very fitting that after rain comes the delicate and petite flower, after the storm comes the rainbow. Rain lilies signify new beginnings, rain lilies mean I love you too. _

Jeremy closes the balcony door. The rain lilies are out of sight, he doesn’t have to think about them anymore. He can forget what they were supposed to mean, he can forget the boy who had given him flowers and butterflies all at once. He can forget about the good days, the candy, how Jean smiled when he was relaxed, when he trusted Jeremy. Jeremy had thought Jean had let him in, had let him come close but kept his secret at arms length. Jeremy thought he would win Jean’s trust, he had thought Jean had felt the same. He had thought that rain lilies meant  _ I love you too _ .

* * *

**Rainflowers (rain lilies)** /  _ rein•flow•uhz  _ / I will never forget you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to play with how flowers have more than one meaning, sometimes ones that are incredibly diffirent. Rainflower is one of my favourites, because "I love you too" and "I will never forget you" are just hella metal meanings you know? This is definitely my favourite chapter name, ngl


	7. Fungus

**Fungus** /  _ fuhng•ghus _ / loneliness

* * *

Arriving home he had half expected to find Riko sitting there, gun in hand, bodyguards flanked behind him. It would be a quick death, maybe, if he was lucky. A bullet, some pain, Riko doing the job Jean had done for years. He had even checked the door for any sign of a break in and was rewarded with nothing. Home alone, safe for now, Riko on his trail but still far behind. He should have expected Jill to be there.

Opening the door he found Jill sitting on his chair, Annie comfortable on her lap, agents at the windows as if they expected someone to come for him. Jean should have expected Jill would be on top of this. After all, it was her job to keep Jean safe before the trial started. He should have expected her to find out around the same time as him that Riko had found him. He should have expected that this would be the end. That didn’t mean it hurt any less when they took him to a nondescript car, pushing him in the backseat with tinted windows to shield him from prying eyes. Jean had begged Jill to let him take the cats and was rewarded when the box with kittens and Annie were put in the backseat with him. Most of his personal belongings would be left behind, but an agent had grabbed the only picture of Jean with Renee and had given it to him before they drove off. Jean took it out of the frame, folded it and put it in his pocket for comfort. 

“Give me your phone,” Jill had said.

Jean had complied and watched as she took the sim card out and destroyed it. The phone was thrown out into a garbage bin as soon as they could afford to make a stop, to ensure that Riko wouldn’t be able to trace them as they took him to a safe house. There would be more security. Jean would lose that little bit of freedom he had been given in favour of fulltime surveillance. As they drove out of San Diego, leaving the city Jean had grown to love behind, his heart ached. Leaving behind his friends, his shop, Jeremy... it was what was always going to happen, Jean had known that from day one. It was why he had tried to keep everyone out, why he tried to always be alone. All of his efforts had failed. He had to turn away so the agents couldn’t see the tears streaming down his face as San Diego disappeared from view.

-

_ To Jeremy, _

_ I’m sorry that I left so suddenly.  _

Crumpling up the paper, starting over again. There are no words left to say, but Jean writes anyway.

_ Dear Jeremy, _

It feels wrong to start the letter that way. Crumple up the paper, start over again.

_ Jeremy, _

_ I don’t know if I will ever see you again. As I write this I am not even sure if Jill will even let me send this letter out to you. I hope she’ll agree to it, but if not, this is as good as any way to get rid of the guilt that stains my heart. I wasn’t planning on leaving so suddenly. Actually, I hadn’t planned on staying all together. You don’t know what that means. I have to keep the details out as much as I can, but staying would have been incredibly foolish. It would have been worth it, though, if it meant staying with you. Jill won’t agree though, I am afraid. I think that if she were to find out, she would call me stupid. Either way, at the end of the day, for what it is worth, if I could I would have stayed with you. I couldn’t, they wouldn’t risk it, but I wanted to stay so badly. _

-

Jean was never told the location of the safe house, but he has been here for about a month now. It’s become hard to say for certain how long it has been, days bleed together as Jean repeats the same routine again and again and again. 

Wake up, make breakfast, brush his teeth, read one of the few books the safe house has to offer, realise he knows the content by heart at this point, watch TV, make dinner, go to bed. Rinse and repeat, every day.

Jean thinks he is slowly going crazy. The agents won’t talk with him, they keep their distance as Jean walks through the house, only occasionally warning him to stay away from windows and doors. He almost wishes he had stayed in San Diego. Facing Riko is almost preferable at this point, but then he remembers his days in the basement and okay, maybe all of this isn’t that bad. It’s still infuriatingly boring, the days seeming drag on endlessly. Jean spends more time in bed because at least if he closes his eyes he can pretend everything is fine, that he is safe in his apartment with Annie by his side. 

The kittens at least offer a little bit of comfort. At a month old they have opened their eyes and they are exploring the building to their heart's content. They have a lot of energy, they play with each other all the time. Sometimes they try to climb the agents’ legs, only for them to be carefully plucked off and put down, just to try again. Jean had been given some toys, so when the TV drives him absolutely crazy he plays with the cats instead. Still, it’s just a routine of rinse and repeat, doing the same thing over and over and over again.

All of Jean’s waking moments are spent thinking about his friends, about Jeremy, about home. He wonders how things are at home, if his friends miss him. He thinks Renee will understand he had left because his past caught up with him. She will keep the shop open for him, maybe hoping he will come back again when he is done running. Nicky might be a little bummed out by him suddenly vanishing off the earth's surface, but he would probably learn to get over it. He didn’t think Jeremy would take it so well. He knew he had hurt him by asking him for coffee and never showing up, and it pained Jean to know that. He wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, tell him he was sorry and that he hadn’t left by choice, but doing that would risk his safety. It would expose him to Riko who was probably using everything and everyone in his power to find Jean and silence him. In a way it worked, Jean was silenced, just not on the matters that Riko wanted. 

Rinse and repeat, same routine every day. Wake up, eat breakfast, watch tv or play with the cats, go to sleep. 

A welcoming change comes to that eventually. After 5 weeks spent in the house by himself, the door opens and Jill comes in with Brendon and Ryuji trailing behind her. Jean has never been so happy to see someone from his old life before. They are in the same boat as Jean. When they got arrested, they agreed to tell the fbi everything they knew and testify. For their cooperation they would receive immunity. Their story of being given to the Moriyamas as children gained them sympathy, as it did for Jean. 

-

_ I was alone for so long, but not anymore. Two of my friends joined me eventually, or, friends, as much as we could be friends back in the day. You will have to forgive me for my vagueness I’m afraid, I really can’t say too much. Maybe you will see it on TV, maybe not, I don’t know how far they will go to keep me hidden.  _

_ I suppose that is irrelevant, considering I can’t explain it? Maybe one day I can give you my secrets, all the secrets I hold. Maybe not, maybe I will never see you again, but it’s nice to imagine, I think. Either way, they used to be my friends. They would help me out when I was alone. When I was in pain or when I missed dinner, they would sneak some back for me. I don’t want to say we had it good, far from it, but I think they were that little spark of light in the darkness. Does that make any sense? Probably not. Well, it is true either way. They were the good in the hellhole that I lived in.  _

-

Things are slightly better with Brendon and Ryuji by his side. There was still little to do, but talking with people still beat reading the same book over and over again any day. Jean had craved that human connection, had craved to be with people who understood what he was going through. The agents were always rotating, taking each other off their shift, never speaking to Jean except to tell him to be careful or not to do something. Brendon and Ryuji told stories of what they had been up to, they exchanged worries about each other. Brendon and Ryuji had been separated, dropped in different corners of the country, alone in an apartment in a busy city where they knew nobody. Jean had always been alone from day one. The only people he met in the basement were the people that had to die by his hand. It had been different for Brendon and Ryuji. They had always been together. Jean couldn’t imagine how distressing that must have been, to suddenly get pulled from each other, to suddenly be alone. Actually he could, it reminded him a whole lot of how he had left France.

“I didn’t think you would have agreed to testify,” Brendon says one night.

The three of them are splayed out on the couch. Brendon and Ryuji are a mess of intertwined limbs, Jean is close enough to lay on someone’s legs. It’s not comfortable, but it’s human contact. It’s not comfortable, but it is comfort. 

“Why not?” He asks, pushing himself up so he can watch his friends.

“We thought you’d remain loyal to Riko,” Ryuji says.

Jean looks at them and it’s really not funny but he’s laughing. The loud kind, the one that leaves your belly aching, the type of laughing he hasn’t done since he and his sisters snuck away from church to steal berries under the sun. Brendon and Ryuji look at each other like Jean has gone crazy and maybe he has but what the hell, Jean feels like he’s allowed to after all the shit that happened to him. After abandoning his family twice.

“I called the FBI,” he says when he calms down. “I was the reason they raided the estate.” 

Brendon and Ryuji don’t believe him, they argue over it for a little but eventually they give in. Jean called the FBI, Jean was the reason the three of them were free. 

-

_ I didn’t lie when I told you I came from France to America. I wish I could tell you more, but I am afraid of getting myself into trouble, I am afraid of losing the freedom I have been offered. Here is what I can tell you though.  _

_ I was born in Marseilles, the fourth child of the Moreau family. I have three older sisters, a mother and a father, but I have no clue where any of them are now. My sisters were called Henriette (though I used to call her Hetty), Sylvie and Margot. Margot was only two years older than me, so we were closer than I was to Sylvie and Henriette. My mother was actually born in Italy. My father was born in Marseilles, just like his father and his father and so on so forth. What I’m saying is my family has always lived in Marseilles, we had a presence there, people knew us for all the wrong reasons. I actually don’t want to talk about him. _

_ My mother was the best. I don’t really know what to say other than that? She loved me. It sounds silly to say that, to name it as a reason for why she was the best, but sadly the same can’t be said about my father.  _

_ Again, I don’t want to talk about him.  _

_ My mother was always at the school plays, she bought me books, she took me to the library. She was an amazing painter, and she would let me paint with her. I’m pretty sure I just ruined whatever she made, because my idea of art was putting paint on my hands and slamming it on her canvas but she would proudly display it anyway, so I don’t think she actually minded it all that much.  _

_ I don’t have much to say about my two eldest sisters. There was a pretty big age gap between us, they were already teenagers when I was still young. The most memories I have are with Margot, of us in the backyard looking for snails, us painting with mother, us playing in the pool, things like that. I miss Margot the most, I still think of what became of them. I don’t think I will ever get to find out though. _

-

The days still pass slowly. Occasionally, an arrest is made and the three of them are informed of the people they got, but it is never Riko. It’s never a ticket to the lives they had slowly built for themselves in different corners of the country. Jean lays in bed more often again, he listens to Brendon and Ryuji going downstairs, the constant rinse and repeat hasn’t gotten to them yet. One day they stand outside of his bedroom, Brendon asking if they should wake Jean.

“No, leave him alone,” Ryuji says.

They think he is asleep. They think he can’t hear.

“He needs this, I think.” 

Jean needs San Diego. Jean needs his shop, his friends. He needs Jeremy. He holds Annie closer, buries his face in her fur and tries to blink the tears from his eyes. He needs to go home, but it doesn’t seem like that will happen anytime soon.

-

_ It’s pretty lonely without you here. I didn’t think I would miss you this much. We have known each other for so little time but you have become just as dear to me as Renee and Nicky. I don’t have that many friends, obviously. I think that is why I cherish the ones I have so much. I think that is why I cherish you so much.  _

_ I actually spent a lot of time keeping people out, because I knew this would happen. I knew I only had a month left in San Diego and I was so terrified of the thought that there would be nothing left of me when I disappeared. I had spent three months in San Diego, I opened my own flower shop, and one day I would disappear and nobody would think twice. I lived like that my whole life, never leaving a mark, no one turning their head if one day I wouldn’t be there anymore, and I guess I was just tired of that. I guess I wanted people to know me, I guess I wanted to surround myself with things that were beautiful, a mask to hide the ugliness I carry with me at all times. I never let it show, except that night at my place. I was surprised I didn’t scare you away, I am glad you stayed. I was never open, always keeping and carrying secrets, but if there is someone I feel I can be open with it would be the people I let into my life. Hell, even Nicky in his own weird way. _

_ Nicky, I don’t know if he counts as a friend actually. He owns a coffee shop down the street, I would have taken you to his store, but he is quite nosy. I wanted to keep that coffee between the two of us. Anyway, what I meant to say is, I think Nicky is more Renee’s friend than mine. We would sometimes talk when I came to get coffee and he tried to set me up with his cousin once, but that’s about it. We actually rarely talk outside of that now that I think about it? I think he might be more of an acquaintance actually.  _

  
  


-

Outside of the safehouse the weather changes from warm to unbearably hot. Summer has rolled around and no one in the house can find it within themselves to be remotely proper about it. Brendon has turned to lounging around the house in his underwear, while Ryuji sits next to the open door of the fridge. It would be somewhat comical if Jean wasn’t exhausted from the heat and spending most of his time laying on the couch under a wet towel. The AC unit in the small house is busted and the agents refuse to send someone over to fix it, worried it will compromise the safety of the three key witnesses of the trial that might not start for months. Jean would feel bad for them if he could bring himself to care. Besides, the agents do not seem happy about it, either, dressed in civilian clothing as they all swelter in the house together. The most they can do is offer them a wet towel or a seat next to the fridge. Some take the offer, others have turned to talking with them as well. 

It’s been almost two months now and the agents have become familiar with the three witnesses they are tasked to protect. Brendon is talking with one of them about a football game that had happened the day before, while Ryuji whines about the heat with the woman who took a spot next to him by the fridge. Jean is the only one that doesn’t talk with the agents. He knows they are here to protect him, but he is still wary of the agents. The Moriyamas had plenty of men on the inside. Jean knows one wrong word to the wrong person can get him killed. Of course, if any of these agents had been working for the Moriyamas, they would have been dead by now so maybe it isn’t that big of a deal. Maybe he can trust these people. 

Actually, there is one agent he trusts other than Jill. Her daughter Josie, who worked in the FBI as well. Occasionally, she would swing by to guard the safe house. Jean had tried to guess the schedule of the agents coming in and out of the safe house, but it seemed to be mostly randomised. Sometimes it took weeks until he saw the same agent, sometimes they came multiple days in a row. If they had a fit schedule, Jean wasn’t able to figure it out. He had stopped trying eventually, but the last time he saw Josie she had promised to bring him something new to read. She had promised to bring a French book for him to read,  _ Le Rouge et le Noir _ by Stendhal. According to Josie it was a real classic, and she had been surprised Jean had not read it. The Moriyamas had a small library, but most books were in English or Japanese and while Jean had been allowed to read them all, he had not been allowed to ask for anything else. He had tried once, but Riko had reacted with extreme violence, the way he responded to everything that was out of line in his eyes. The safehouse had nothing in French either and Jean hadn’t considered buying books back in San Diego. 

The agents finally leave as the sun begins to set, slowly trickling out of the house and being replaced by familiar faces. One of the new agents shuts the fridge door, ignoring Ryuji’s loud complaints as they lecture him on energy bills.

“Guess you guys aren’t dealing with the heat that well either, huh?” A female voice asks behind him.

When he turns around, he comes face to face with Josie. She is in her early thirties. She has the same freckles from lazing in the California sun as her mother, but her younger features make her look a little kinder than Jill. She is holding something behind her back, but Jean doesn’t have to guess what it is.  _ Le Rouge et le Noir _ , the book she had promised him. 

The copy she gives him looks old and worn, like it belonged to someone who read it more than once, like it belonged to someone who had loved this book. When he opens it the first page has a name written in the corner in the messy handwriting of a child. Josephine. The last name scratched out, but without a doubt, this Josephine is the same person as the agent now standing in front of him.

“I didn’t know you speak French?” Sometimes the French language felt weird and foreign on his own tongue. For years he could only whisper the words to himself in a dark room. When Kevin became part of the structure, much more often downstairs than Riko, much more gentle, he began to share that part of him. Still, Kevin left as sudden as he came, and Jean was back to being alone, to hiding in the shadows to whisper the words that were forbidden to him.

“ _ I am pretty decent, I think? I learned in high school _ ,” Josie says in French.

Her words are too harsh, an obvious and strong American accent clinging to the words the same way Jean’s french accent clings to his. 

“ _ It’s alright. _ ”

Josie laughs and shakes her head. “Nowhere near as good as you, I’m afraid.” 

Jean turns the book around in his hands. The French words on the page are his now, no longer hidden and out of reach. Out in the open, blatantly his.

-

_ I really wish I could have taken you for that coffee, Jeremy. I was planning to stay, I was planning to die there so I could stay with you. I don’t think you’re my friend anymore, I think I don’t want you to be my friend anymore. I want more. I want you. I want to come home and I want you to be there. I want you. It’s silly to fall so fast, but I never pretended to make much sense. I want to see you again, I want you to tell me it will be alright even if it’s a lie. _

_ I want to stop being afraid. I want to take control of my life. I want freedom, I want peace. I want the things that have been denied from me. I want that coffee I promised you. _

-

Jean has read  _ Le rouge et le Noir _ at least five times now, the copy worn, the pages stained. Words that were foreign to Josie are marked with the English translation scribbled in the corner. He hasn’t seen Josie in a long time. He hasn’t been able to ask for a new French book, though he tried more than once to get the message passed along by another agent. To them, Jean is still a criminal, someone who’s saving his own skin by turning on the people he spent the past years with. They don’t relay the message, so Jean is forced to reread the book for a sixth time.

Brendon and Ryuji are in the living room watching the news, the volume turned down as they are more invested in a debate on whether water is wet or not. Brendon tried to include Jean in it only once, but he had been shut down fairly quickly. Jean had no intention in settling their debate, so they were left repeating the same arguments over and over until finally, Brendon relented and let Ryuji have the win. Water isn’t wet. 

“If baguettes could walk, how do you think they’d do it?” Brendon asks after only a few seconds of blissful silence.

Jean looks up from his book at that.

“I hate you.” 

“Do you think they’d crawl like a worm?”

“I am not having this debate with you.” 

“Or would they like, just flip from one end to the other? Like, do a little cartwheel?”

“I personally think,” Ryuji begins speaking louder to get over Brendon. “That they would run like a horse.” 

Brendon and Jean both fall silent at that. Ryuji smirks and before they know it. the room descends into chaos. Brendon shouts that that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard, because the baguette doesn’t have legs and therefore it couldn’t possibly run. Ryuji counters, saying that the baguette doesn’t need legs, it just uses the blunt ends as legs. Nobody listens to Jean’s counter argument that baguettes are inanimate and couldn’t walk in any way, shape or form. Apparently saying that makes him a party pooper. 

Jean throws his hands up in an exasperated movement, dropping his book back on the kitchen table before burying his head in his hands. Brendon and Ryuji continue their argument on if a baguette would run like a horse, while Jean sends a look at the agents. One of them is new, and she looks like she wants to be anywhere but here. It didn’t help any when the agent next to her chimes in to discuss how he thinks a baguette would move. Jean shares an exhausted look with the girl, then turns to the TV only to find himself looking into Riko’s cold eyes.

“Shut up,” he says.

No one listens to him.

“EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP!” 

The room falls silent, eyes on Jean as he moves into the living room to turn on the sound of the tv.

“…. Moriyama was the second son of Kengo Moriyama, who was apprehended in his private home by the FBI a week earlier. With Riko in custody, the FBI is finally able to say they have rounded up all of the important players in the Moriyama syndicate. They will begin preparing their case against them soon. This was Cindy McClaren with-“

Jean turns off the TV and slowly turns to Brendon and Ryuji. They are still staring at the TV as if they expect it to turn back on and tell them more. Jean can feel adrenaline rushing through his veins, because Riko has been arrested and that means that soon they will be getting out of the safehouse. Soon they will have to face Riko in jail, they will have to face the people that had held them captive for years.

“I’m going to be sick,” Jean mutters.

No one responds to him, even the agents are frozen in place. Jean makes a break for the toilet, just in time to throw up his lunch. He is heaving over the toilet, bile burning in the back of his throat, tears streaming down his face but he is smiling. So wide, so vivid it hurts, because Riko lost. He lost, Jean won, the end. It’s as exhilarating as it is frightening and Jean throws up for a second time, but even that doesn’t stop him from smiling as he flushes the toilet. 

Jean is free.

  
  


-

_ He got arrested, Jeremy. All I have to do is see him in trial, but I’ll be ready to do that. Nothing stands in my way now, because there is no way in hell they will let that asshole go. I’m scared, I won’t admit it to the others. I have to stand strong, someone has to, it might as well be me, but I’m terrified. In some sick way I almost don’t want this to happen? I grew up with these people, even if growing up meant all the dark stuff that it did. I think that’s normal though? As far as normal applies to someone like me, anyway. Or maybe normal doesn’t apply to me at all. Maybe what we decide is normal wants nothing to do with me, and that is why this is what I consider normal. It doesn’t matter though. The positives far outweigh the negatives. When this is over I’m coming back home. _

_ I was afraid to call it that, but San Diego is my home. _

_ I’m going home. _

-

The federal courthouse stands tall against the summer sky, the white stone looks brighter in the harsh summer sun. Jean is glad that this car has an AC, even though the drive from the new safehouse to the court is pretty short. The new safehouse in Washington DC is smaller than the one they stayed in while they awaited Riko’s arrest. Jean glances out the window as they pass the courthouse. People who work in the vicinity of the building mill about as they prepare to start their workday. The trial starts at 1 PM sharp, but Jean and some other witnesses were brought in at 8 already. They wanted to avoid their witnesses being spotted, they wanted to avoid the very real threat of someone harming them. 

The Moriyamas were kept in jail until the trial with no chance of parole, but money makes its way around, and Jean knows that there were things that slipped under the FBI's radar. They hadn't caught everybody and the threat that there might still be an order for Jean, Brendan, and Ryuji's death loomed like a dark cloud.. Most of the Moriyamas’ followers took the smart option of refusing to speak. Prison would beat the knowledge that at every corner someone could be waiting to finish what the Moriyama’s started. Jean also knows he never had that option. It was either get out and live to tell the tale or end up at the ends of his own gun. It was just a toss up for who would be pulling the trigger.

“It’s massive,” Brendon says as they loop around to the back of the building.

Jean doesn’t respond. He turns away from the courthouse and keeps his eyes trained on the headrest in front of him. All he has to do is go through the trial, all he has to do is answer the questions from the lawyers and face Riko. It all sounds so easy, but it is anything but. Jean will have to defy the very people he had worked for, the very people that owned him since he was a child. Today will be anything but easy, but by God, it would be worth it to walk out of that courthouse a free man.

The car parks in front of the backdoor, and the three men are hurried inside. Agents stand by the door and keep an eye out for anyone suspicious, but they all make it inside without any trouble. Outside, the car turns away, and then the door to the courthouse falls shut and all Jean can hear is his own heart beating in his chest and the buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead. An agent gestures with his head to follow, then turns his back to them and walks away. Jean takes a deep breath, it’s now or never, then sets off after the agent, behind him the only two friends he had at the Moriyamas’ and another agent with a gun. 

They follow the first agent through a long winding hallway, taking turns until Jean starts to forget which way is up and which way is down. He thinks they do it on purpose, disorient the men that could at any moment return to criminals and escape the courthouse, keep out the Moriyamas and the men that work for them. They will be hidden this way, out of the eye of the media, the lawyers, the jury and the judge. For now, anyway. The trial will start in a couple hours. The courtroom will fill up, and Riko will be there. Riko, leisurely, an air of arrogance to him, posture straight, no flaws. Perfectly upkept Riko, falling apart in front of Jean. 

The hours trickle by slowly, Jean has been pacing the room since 12 as the start of the trial slowly edges closer. Brendon and Ryuji have taken to silently sitting and staring at a fixed point in the room. Jean has never felt so anxious before. Sitting still is out of the question. He wants the trail to start, the fear of seeing Riko has turned into this intense need to see him, to let him know it was Jean that betrayed him. It’s now a little past one, and finally finally the door opens.

“Jean Moreau,” a woman says.

Jean stops his restless pacing to face the woman. She nods once before turning around, and Jean doesn’t have to be told that means he finally gets to go out and say his piece. The lawyer that represents the state will get to ask him questions first and then Riko’s lawyer will cross examine him. Jean wonders if it’s the lawyer that always worked for the family or if he too has been arrested. 

Again, Jean has to follow a long hallway to the courtroom, this one mostly going straight. Big windows open up into the outside world. Outside reports catch a sight of Jean and cameras begin to flash, but Jean heads straight ahead. The trial will end today, so there will be no point in keeping his identity hidden any longer beyond this. Jean denied the FBI’s help to go off the radar after the trial, so they can only do so much in stopping the reporters. The hallway moves on, the windows disappear and Jean is alone with the woman leading him to the massive doors that lead into the courtroom. Jean has to wait until he is called in, but that doesn’t take long. He takes a deep breath, then the doors open and Jean steps inside.

Riko is there, his gaze impassive, except Jean can see the little twitch in his mouth. He is livid. He had held out the hope that Jean would come crawling back, he had held out the hope that Jean’s fear of him would outweigh his desire for freedom. Jean turns, meets Riko’s eyes. He holds his gaze for only a few seconds, then he turns and sits down in the witness stand. He can feel Riko’s eyes burning on him, but Jean refuses him the satisfaction of being acknowledged. Riko holds no power over him and he is about to find that out the hard, painful way.

“Jean Moreau, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” 

Jean turns his gaze on Riko. “So help me God,” he says.

Riko looks furious, his calm composure falling apart by those four words. Jean turns his gaze back to the courtroom while the lawyer representing the state makes his way to the stand. 

“Jean Moreau, is it true that from the ages eight to twenty three you worked for the Moriyamas at their West Virginia estate?”

“Yes, but not out of free will.” 

Jean knows these questions, had rehearsed them in his head during restless nights. He is in control, not the lawyers, not the judge, not Riko, only him. Jean is going to reveal the horrible truth that he had to bear for so long. He is still so young, but he feels so old, the weight of anguish and death on his shoulders. Jean will let it all go, when he has stepped out of this courtroom, all of those secrets — that suffering and that pain — will no longer be his to bear.

“Can you elaborate on that?” 

Jean nods. “I was born in Marseilles to a family that worked closely with the Moriyamas. My father borrowed money from Kengo Moriyama that he was not able to pay back. In order to repay him, my father sold me to Tetsuji Moriyama, who would repay the amount my father owed in money.” 

“Can you explain what kind of things Tetsuji made you do?”

“I was in charge of clean-up, to put it bluntly. People that ran their mouth, people that cost them money, people that had to be silenced were brought to me and I had to execute them.” 

The lawyer nods, face a blank mask. He had been told before of the things Jean had done, of the things he had gone through and so he had filed it all away. There isn’t an ounce of sympathy to be found in the eyes of a man whose day to day life is filled with the stories of the same horrors that Jean lived through everyday. At least the lawyer gets to walk away from it all at the end of the day. Jean has to live with the blood on his hands.

“Can you give us names of the people you executed?” 

“No, even if I wanted to, I wasn’t supposed to know who these people were. They just came in and someone else cleaned up the body for me.” 

“Alright. Last question, can you tell me about the way you were treated at the Moriyama estate?” 

“To put it lightly, like absolute shit. I have the scars to prove it, too.” 

“No further questions.” 

Jean knew that the easy part was done. The moment the state lawyer sits down, Riko’s lawyer rises up to cross examine him. The state lawyer had been apathetic to his past, but the Moriyamas’ lawyer is outright hostile. He tries his best to get Jean to rise, to show some anger. To slip up and discredit himself with the questions he asks, but no matter what he tries Jean stays calm. He isn’t going to lose to Riko, he isn’t going to be their property for any longer. San Diego had shown him what it means to be free. What it means to have his own friends, his own shop. It had shown him what it means to be his own person. Riko thinks he would be dealing with the same Jean that cowered at night, that begged not to be hurt, but Riko is a goddamn fool. That Jean is gone, that Jean had nothing to live for and nothing to lose. 

Jean returns to the room where he and the others were kept, watches Brendon and Ryuji get pulled out one by one and return in the same state of shellshock. After the trial is done, after all the proof had been examined and the jury finishes their deliberation, the lawyer representing the state comes to their room to inform them that the Moriyamas are all going to jail. Riko will never see the light of day again, while Jean will walk out of here a free man. 

Victory is bittersweet. 

-

Moving back to San Diego takes a little longer than Jean would have liked. He doesn’t exactly have a driver's license, and neither do Brendon and Ryuji. He can’t exactly take his cats on a bus or an airplane, so he ends up with a taxi. It’s a long trip from DC to San Diego. Annie hates the car rides and complains as much as she can, so Jean has to shorten the trips for the taxi drivers’ sake. They stay in shitty motels that don’t drain the little bit of money Jean has left in his possession. When he finally crosses the border into California, he feels a weight drop from his shoulders. The letter to Jeremy is kept safe in the pocket of his jacket. Sometimes he reaches for it to see if he still has it, clutches it and remembers what he’s been through, remembers that even if nobody in San Diego wants him back at least he’s free. 

At least he’s finally going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man just two more chapters! I hope y'all enjoyed the story so far~ Also because I'm curious, if a baguette could walk how do you think it'd go about that? I personally agree with the "it would run like a horse" theory

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I wonder who the candy guy is.. weird, anyway, chapter two will be up tomorrow! Come say hi on my [tumblr if u want](https://eloquent-apollo.tumblr.com/)


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